Through a Mirror, Darkly
by friendlyquark
Summary: There is something in Tomoko's head and the Meta-Crises Doctor, Rose, and the whole Pete's World crew, must find out what it is, before something terrible returns and uses her to take over the universe.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Very Bad Things

The White Guardian stared at the board with a frown. He didn't like the way things were going just then, but he wasn't dismayed. This was all the usual sorts of things that his opponent got up to, after all. There were a few surprises, but nothing that was out of character for him.

This trick was to find something in his own repertoire that he hadn't used yet. He thought of several things, discarding each idea, one after the other, and then hit upon the thing he needed just then.

He moved his pieces and then leaned back.

Sitting on the board was a strange mishmash of figures, all moving in different directions, but seeming to converge upon one point.

"Interesting, you are being clever," the Black Guardian hissed and the White paused, wondering if he was being complimented or insulted and not being quite sure which it was. The whole exchange made him a bit uneasy.

* * *

Aboard Susan's TARDIS, the Doctor, Koschei, Guinn, and Adie were still trying to repair the damage done by the effort to move the weaponized Entropy away from inhabited areas.

"Despite my extreme brilliance, along with Rose's equally genius efforts, for some reason Susan is being most unreasonable about the repairs," the Doctor complained and Guinn and Koschei exchanged amused glances.

"Maybe its not the brilliance, or the damage, but the frequency of the occurrences that is bothering her," Koschei began, only to be interrupted by a 'ping' noise as the intercom system in the workshop came into unexpected life. A nearby screen lit up, showing the cartoonish face of Tomoko Construct.

"Emergency Contact, Doctor, The," Tomoko construct complained. "The Dead Man's Timer has expired. Tomoko is considered to be dead or captured. Assistance is required."

"Wait, what?" Adie asked, looking alarmed.

"Oh, I should have remembered. Tomoko has a dead man's timer set up," soothed the Doctor. "Remember back on the Central Command station, that's how we knew she was heating up," he reminded her. "I guess, since she's undergoing conversion, she hasn't entered her sequence into the computer and the timer has expired. I'm not sure how she has it set up, but it's perfectly fine.."

"Tomoko is considered to be dead or captured," Tomoko Construct continued to insist. "Assistance is required."

"Er," Koschei said, "How do we shut it off then? Can we hack it?"

Guinn scowled at the screen, leaning over and tapping at the image.

"You're a clever AI, you ought to know why she hasn't called in," he informed it, but the screen image shifted slightly, panning back to show her from the waist up, with an angry face, as she crossed her arms and gave him a very Tomoko-like glower. For being a cartoon face, the AI conveyed human emotions rather well.

"Assistance is required," Tomoko Construct responded stubbornly.

"Adie," said the Doctor, "Why don't you go to Medi-bay and activate the camera feed for Tomoko Construct? We never turned it back on… perhaps if she can see Tomoko, that will handle the alert, eh?" He smiled at the screen. "Go with Adie, now, that's a good little AI!"

Tomoko-Construct did not look amused by this, but did vanish from the screens.

"All right, Doctor," Adie said, and headed down the hallway.

* * *

Dar looked up at the screen on the wall in surprise, as it beeped at him and the painted face of the AI Tomoko had created glared at him.

"What's wrong?" he asked the interface.

"The Dead Man's Timer has expired. Tomoko is considered to be dead or captured. Assistance is required."

Without a second thought, Dar walked over to the coffin and checked the tells.

"It says she's in here, has it been messed with?" he asked, not questioning the AI's assessment.

"Tomoko is considered to be dead or captured. Assistance is required at once," Tomoko Construct insisted.

"Where is she?" he asked patiently.

"Tomoko Prime present location: unknown."

"When did you last see her?" he tried again.

"Tomoko Prime Last Sighting: twenty-seven minutes ago."

"Bugger," he snarled as Adie walked in. Without a word he smacked at the coffin, opening it up and staring down at the empty interior. "Twenty-seven minutes ago. Gives her a hell of a head start."

"Will you assist?" Tomoko Construct insisted.

"Damn straight I will assist!" he rapped out. "Adie! Tell the Doctor! She's gone! We need to move!" He slammed down the lid angrily and headed for the console room, leaving Adie open-mouthed behind him.

* * *

The central TARDIS pillar stopped moving, as the TARDIS came to a momentary stop in deep space. The view on the screens was of starfields spangling the black, no sign of worlds or other ships. Tomoko turned to study her guests, eyeing them with a considering air.

The two children were stood in a corner, like toys she had done playing with, and they were as rigid and frozen as wood, though their eyes betrayed the awareness inside of them, the full knowledge that they were helpless was crystal clear in their gazes.

Tomoko knelt down, scowling at the little boy, tilting his head back and forth, studying his bone structure and the shapes of his features with great interest.

"Hold out your arms," she instructed and he obeyed, pupils dilated in fear. "Now, turn around and stand up straight." He turned in place as requested. "Rather young," she pronounced with a scowl, "But, if need be, you can be speed grown. The real problem is that you haven't gone before the Schism. That will be awkward. Step aside."

He did so, and Tomoko spent a long moment looking at the blonde girl.

"You are going to be useful, I think," she murmured. "In the back storeroom, you will find a small red box, and there should be a spare sonic about. Fetch them at once." Freeya shuddered into motion, moving down the corridor in jerky steps.

The girl returned with the box and the sonic. Tomoko rummaged around in it, and then drew forth a metal collar.

"Your job," she told the child, while working with collar and sonic, "Will be to keep your… cousin from doing anything foolish. There will come a time when I will want him to stay out of my way. Your job will be to convince him. Should you fail to do so, this device will act to correct you."

She handed it back to Freeya, who put it on and turned around obediently. It fit her child-sized neck perfectly. Tomoko knelt down, using the sonic to weld the collar so that it couldn't be removed.

"Now, come along both of you, so much to do," she told them and they followed after her jerkily, Freeya's eyes filling up with tears that fell silently down her cheeks.

* * *

Rose stepped into the console room and looked up. The TARDIS was upset and unhappy and she moved immediately to lay her hand on the console surface and try to soothe her.

A jumble of sensations ran through her and she closed her eyes trying to listen more closely.

The others all thought that she was somehow able to speak directly to the corals, but that wasn't strictly true. She could feel them, as they fluttered in and out of her own limited vision, she could catch glimpses of their thoughts, but it required a concentrated effort on both sides for real communication.

Alarm, fear, unhappiness, these were clear to her, but the cause for it was not.

Something had happened though that had made the TARDIS extremely upset.

* * *

They had hardly begun working again, when all of their screens cut out, at the exact same instant. Instead of their previous images, each screen displayed the same phrase. "Emergency Interrupt," in bright red letters that blinked insistently.

The one screen that did not display the words "Emergency Interrupt," cleared to show the image of Tomoko Construct, still visible from the waist up, still with her arms crossed, and looking much angrier. Her background had shifted from its usual neutral grey to a reddish-yellow colour reminiscent of flames.

"Alert confirmed," she announced. "Assistance is required at once. Failure to provide assistance within sixty seconds will be interpreted as authorization for independent action. Respond immediately."

"That doesn't sound good at all," the Doctor commented and Koschei and Guinn both stood up, staring at the screen in alarm.

Just then, the intercom beeped.

"Doctor? Doctor!" It was Adie's voice. "Doctor, it's empty, she's not here, Tomoko is gone!"

"Gone?" The Doctor stared at Guinn and Koschei.

"I'll check the sensors," Koschei told them, heading out of the room.

"I'll start an analysis on the cryo unit, find out why the alarms weren't sounded," Guinn told them and ran out as well, while the Doctor turned to look at Tomoko Construct.

"I apologize for not believing you," he told her. "Do you have any further data on what happened?"

"Tomoko failed to renew the Dead Man's Timer upon exiting this TARDIS. The timer was not renewed upon entering TARDIS designated, 'Adie's TARDIS.' Communication with TARDIS designated 'Adie's TARDIS' has been unavailable for the last twenty minutes. Contact with Tomoko Construct 2 has been lost. Definitions dictate that Tomoko Construct 2 will be acting independently until communication can be re-established."

"My dear girl, I really need to upgrade you significantly," the Doctor muttered, his mind racing. "Thank you for the information."

"Tomoko Prime has delayed upgrade plans, pending research on self-awareness," Tomoko Construct told him.

"Really? She should have asked me, I could have given her an Asimov Circuit... but, that's neither here nor there. We have to find out what happened!" he told her and Guinn and Adie walked back into the room. He was holding a panel in his hand, his face grim.

"The sensor was disabled," he told the Doctor. "By someone with an intimate knowledge of the device."

"Could Tomoko have hacked it?" he asked hopefully.

"Not in the state she was in, no," Guinn assured him.

"What's going on?" Adie asked. "Where's Tomoko?"

"According to the lovely T-C, she is on your TARDIS, I'm afraid," the Doctor told her and Guinn's frown grew deeper.

"Wait… where is my TARDIS?" Adie asked.

"Not here," Koschei told her as he, Dar, and Rose walked into the room. "According to one of the sentries, it left about thirty minutes ago," he continued and Adie's shoulders slumped.

"I guess sometimes you are the Grand-Theft-or, and sometimes you are the Grand-Theft-ee."

"Recall switch?" Guinn suggested and the Doctor looked at him and nodded.

"Well, it's worth a try," he sighed and they all trooped into the Console room, their expressions a mixture, of shock, dismay and worry.

"Not that she was likely to overlook something like that," Dar pointed out grimly and the Doctor nodded.

"No, not very likely," he agreed and the they exchanged looks of deep disquiet.

* * *

Pete shook his head and looked around in confusion. He'd been doing something...

His wife's scream jolted him into action and he ran into the hallway to where she was standing over the crumpled form of the dog, Rose. The little animal was lying quite still, her body at an unnatural angle and he froze in horror. Something awful had happened, but his mind was blurry and unfocused.

The children came charging down the stairs in a panic, Davian leaning heavily on Toby. They all looked terrified, pale, and with appeal in their eyes, as though they were waiting for him to make it all go away.

"She took them!" Toby shouted and suddenly Pete's blurry brain spit out a warning. They were not safe here and there were Torchwood agents outside that could protect them.

"Get out of the house! All of you! Run!" he shouted and began grabbing up the littler ones to carry.

The orphans didn't hesitate, they were survivors of the Time War, they recognized when it was time to simply obey, and they all took off running, feet pelting across the floor. Jenny and Jamie trusted their Gramps and just clung to him.

Pete held his grandchildren against him and ran for the front door. Behind him, Jackie paused to scoop up Leela and Andred's youngest child, moving more slowly than he liked, but he was fully occupied with getting the children out of the house.

They almost made it.

* * *

"Doctor, incoming message from Gallifrey," Rose told him. They'd been working on tracing Adie's TARDIS, but when Tomoko had taken it, she had managed to disable the recall circuit, as well as the engines of Susan's TARDIS, which circumstance made the Doctor feel very grim indeed.

"What the hell is she thinking?" Dar growled and the Doctor shook his head.

Susan had come back at Koschei's call and her face was etched with lines of worry as she reran the security footage.

"Hard to say, she looks... odd," she murmured. The communication panel beeped at her.

"We're a bit busy just now," The Doctor grumbled and Rose shook her head at him and opened the channel.

"This is Rose," she answered and Kate Stewart's grave face appeared on the screen. The Doctor glanced at the screen and then went still, as the drawn, pale, red-eyed image caught his attention and made him realize that something terrible had happened.

"Rose, I'm so sorry, but there is no easy way to say this," Kate began and the Doctor steeled himself. "There was an explosion at your parent's home," she began and Rose's hand went to her mouth to stifle a scream of denial.

"Jenny and Jamie? My Parents? Toby? The children?" she demanded and Kate's face went stony. The Doctor froze and it felt like a vise was closing around his hearts.

"I... they're in hospital, Rose, it's... not good," Kate told them, her voice sounding strained and miserable. "Davian was killed instantly, as were two of the Torchwood Agents on duty. The others are in ICU right now. The doctors don't know if any of them will make it."

"We'll be there soon," Susan replied, briskly competent. She got the hospital information from Kate and then she, Koschei and Guinn took over repairing the TARDIS, as Rose turned to bury her face in the Doctor's lapels, sobbing. He held her tightly against him, fear hammering at him, panic threatening to overwhelm him.

Dar stood motionless, staring at the console, his face a mask of ice and then he began typing queries into the computer, searching for answers, the Doctor guessed.

"Why?" Rose cried out. "Was it the terrorists?" she asked and he shook his head.

"I don't know, love," he choked out, even though his throat felt like sandpaper. "We'll find out through and when we do..." his hearts were filling up with fire and anger, a terrible dark rage that seemed to eat at him.

"Let's get to the hospital first," Susan warned. "I would rather that the children were not under human care!"

He nodded, but he barely heard her, his mind filled with thoughts of vengeance and bloody death for those that had dared to threaten his family.

* * *

Aislynn awoke stiff and sore, got dressed in the nearest midnight-blue robes that came to hand, and headed outside to see the status of the world. Taydin was in the console room, dressed and working on recalibrating the entropy shunts. He looked up as she came in and then followed her outside without a word.

She frowned when she saw that one of the TARDIS had left, wondering if something had happened. She had been so exhausted that they might have tried to contact her and she could have failed to respond, which worried her.

The other TARDIS had its door partially open and so she knocked politely.

Guinn answered her knock, pulling open the door for her, his face strained and eyes a bit wide.

"Lady Aislynn, commander Taydin," he greeted her, looking at them as though he'd forgotten about their very existence.

"What's happened?" They had a history, but now was not the time to get into it, from the look on his face.

"There's been... an attack. The children...," he trailed off and then took a deep breath. "They're in hospital, we need to get there, but the TARDIS has been disabled."

"Hello, Aislynn, Taydin, can we beg a lift?" Susan interrupted smoothly.

Aislynn already had her mouth open to respond the moment she had heard the word, 'disabled,' and closed it again.

"Lock it up, come along, we leave at once."

"Yes, we're coming," Susan replied. "Thank you." She ushered a panicked-looking Rose and a thunderous Doctor out of the TARDIS. Koschei paused and glanced at them.

"I'm going to get the TARDIS back on line and then pick up the medical personnel here, if that's okay," Koschei murmured.

"Would you please be so good as to see to Owen and Katie if you do? I haven't had the chance to speak with them," Aislynn suggested.

"I will see to it that they are safe and returned home to you," he assured her with a nod.

"Do you need help?" Dar asked, but Koschei shook his head.

"Stay with them, keep them safe and... watch out for the Doctor," Koschei murmured and Dar nodded, his eyes like chips of ice.

"My thanks, Koschei," Aislynn inclined her head graciously, pretending not to have heard the last part, then turned to the Elysium, pulling out her key and unlocking the door.

In grim silence, the Time Lords went aboard, faces strained and worried.

"Coordinates?" Aislynn moved to the console, nodding at Taydin.

Susan tapped them in for her, her face pale. Taydin patted her shoulder gently and Susan gave him a small smile, that looked rather forced.

Aislynn simply thumbed the de-materialization controls, her face grave.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Empty Beds

Koschei finished up the last of the major repairs and then went to the main Hospital, looking around for people who weren't wearing the long robes of Logopolitans.

The dark haired man and the blonde woman beside him caught his eye and he headed towards them.

"Owen and Katie Harper?" he asked and they turned to look at him in surprise.

"Yes?"

"Lady Aislynn had to run back to Earth, but she asked me to collect you all and bring you home," Koschei told them and they looked at him in surprise.

"She left without us?" Owen asked, his face disbelieving.

"There was an explosion, on Earth," Koschei explained, his eyes blurring with tears he had no time to shed. "The children, our children, we'd sent them to Earth to be safe, while the Entropy wave came, and ...," he trailed off, not able to continue.

"Koschei?" Martha Jones came towards him, face concerned and he looked at her, tears breaking free.

"They bombed Pete and Jackie's house, the children were there," he told her and Martha Jones wrapped him up in a hug. He clung to her, the feelings of guilt for what he'd put her alternate self through fading, as his fears for the children overcame him.

"We should go then," Owen replied. "Time Lord children being cared for in a regular hospital?" His gasp of horror made them all start moving, with Martha chivvying Koschei into the main hallway of the hospital.

"I had to get the TARDIS fixed, Tomoko disabled it," he murmured and the others gave him a variety of looks, but the medical instincts came to the fore once again.

"Okay, Koschei, now let's go, all right?" Katie told him gently, helping Martha to steer him. He dimly noted Harry, Rory, and the others gathering in the hallway as they walked, but he was so frantically worried that he found that he couldn't quite focus.

"Yes, of course," he murmured and looked up at Martha. "There are already so few of us, what did we do to make them hate us like this?" he asked and Martha just mutely shook her head.

"I don't know, but we'll take care of it, okay?" she murmured soothingly and he just nodded. The Doctor was right, these humans were rather wonderful when you got to know them.

* * *

Susan was moving from bed to bed, scanning the children as she went and trying not to think about what had happened. She had to stay to stay focused on the task at hand. Her years as a doctor in the War came in good stead just then. She had the steady nerves and calmness under fire that she'd learned in that conflict. Her hand never even trembled as she read the injuries to little Jenny.

Rose was sitting next to Jamie, holding his hand in hers, while Grandfather sat with Jenny and they both looked utterly devastated. Dar was standing in a corner, propping up the wall and looking like he was ready to stick a blade in someone. Susan glanced at him and shivered, remembering the cold-eyed man he had been when he'd captured her and dragged her to the Tower.

She had put the children into healing trances, stabilizing them, but she couldn't stop thinking about Davian. His face the last time she'd seen him, so serious and sad as he'd helped her gather the children's things together for the trip kept rising in her mind, despite her best efforts.

If he'd been a full Time Lord, would he have died? She wasn't sure, but she did know that he had been far less able to survive because she hadn't yet found a substitute for the Untempered Schism. She rose and stepped out of the ward, wondering if her failure had killed Davian, when Guinn ran up to her and grabbed her hands.

"Susan!" he cried, his face bleak and desperate. "Freeya! She's not here!"

"Are you sure?" she asked, knowing it was a stupid thing to say, but not having any other words.

"I've checked in every ward, she's not here!" he cried. "She's not in the morgue either," he told her.

"Could she be...?" she asked hesitantly and he looked at her.

Susan turned and went through the wards quickly, counting and frowning, seeking something and not finding it.

"Nurse, there should be another child here, a boy," she asked and the nurse shook her head.

"No, that's all of them," she replied and Susan frowned even more deeply.

"Where's Justinian?" she asked Guinn, who looked at her with an expression of deepening dismay, before he bolted from the room, and then she went back to her Grandfather. She didn't like the way her mind was working.

* * *

Guinn ran from the Ward, heading for the Trans Mat to Torchwood. He knew he could get a lift from one of the agents there by mentioning the Doctor's name and flashing the badge Kate had given him. He spotted Aislynn as he headed out and she stepped in front of him, forestalling his flight.

"Shall we, then?" she said coolly and he stood there, gaping at her, trying to understand what she was talking about.

"Excuse me?" he asked, startled.

"We're going to the scene of the blast, I take it?" she enquired with an elegant tilt of her head.

"I yes, I... I'm sorry. I never said so before, but I am," he blurted out and his face was flushed and scarlet.

Aislynn looked very surprised. She stood there for a moment, examining him, her eyes assessing, and he wriggled under her gaze, feeling like a truant student before a sharp-eyed professor.

"Thank you for that," she said, and her tone was neutral. "Come on, we've places to be."

"Freeya, she wasn't with the others, she's missing! Justinian too!" he spat out, a bit incoherently.

"If she was anywhere on the site, we'll be able to locate her. The Elysium has had a full... upgrade... several times during the course of the War."

"I know that, I did the work," he muttered and she nodded. "I just hope they're okay, I really do, she's only eleven and he's just ten," he told her, his face bleak.

Aislynn gestured him inside. Taydin was standing at the console and he gave Guinn a long level look that made the younger Time Lord feel as though he was being dissected.

"Coordinates?" she asked in a brisk tone and he recited them to her. There was a pause as she studied him. "Lord Guinntashay, because of your superior engineering skills, I am giving you access to run the scanners when we arrive."

"You are... kind. Thank you," he replied and she typed the coordinates in and got the access sorted.

* * *

Aislynn looked up at the man who had once been the Master and tried to recall the cruelty and coldness of his former self. She found it harder than she had thought to reconcile the quiet, sad man in front of her with the icy, precise automaton from before.

She recalled the emptiness of his eyes, the way his face had seemed frozen over, how his gaze would pass over you like you didn't really exist and she could hardly believe that they were the same person. Lord Guinntashay looked up at her and the deep concern in his energy, the way he was nearly quivering with worry, was the exact opposite of the uncaring creature he had been before.

"We're landing with cloaking on, I don't care to be seen unless we're ready," she informed him and he surprised her with a small smile.

"As odd as it sounds, I have UNIT ID," he told her, pulling out the card and looking at it wonderingly. "This universe is topsy-turvy," he said so softly that she barely heard it.

"A lot of things are topsy-turvy now," she said quietly and he looked up at her, almost fearfully. "We're landing." She finished the materialization protocol, wondering when she had ceased to fear this man.

She activated the main screen to show an image of the wreckage, then stepped back to get out of his way of the scanning console. For all the anger and distress he had generated in her, she had never doubted his real gift. He was utterly brilliant, a true once in a millennia genius. What had been done to him, what he'd been turned into, it was a perversion of everything she held in high esteem. She, who knew the pain and alienation that a gift could bring, felt a pang of sympathy for the further destruction done to him.

He ran his hands across the boards with infinite gentleness and then began coaxing them to a greater depth than she'd ever seen before, calling up functions that she'd been unaware of and she was shaken by that. He was moving with a grace and assurance that had been completely lacking before, as though he was far more at home with the ship than with the people who flew in her.

"You've done an excellent job repairing her, but there are some tunings that she still needs," he muttered, his eyes abstracted as he worked.

"That doesn't surprise me. I love this vessel, but mechanical engineering is not my forte. Her current well-functioning status is entirely due to Scout Commander Taydin's efforts." She rested a hand on the console, while Taydin remained silent, pretending he had heard nothing of her praise. "I would like to get her tuned at some point," she mused.

"You're an excellent engineer," he told Taydin and then dropped his head back down. "I designed these systems, though, so I have a bit of an advantage," he told her absently, his focus still on the console and the work of the sensors, rather than the conversation.

He called up the images of the house's interior and breathed out looking both relieved and unhappy at the same time.

"They're not here," Aislynn finally articulated what the scans revealed.

"No," he replied, his voice flat and hard. "They're gone."

* * *

The Doctor stood beside the body bag, his face like stone. He'd been called away from his children's bedside by a confused orderly and dragged down to the morgue, Dar trailing after him like a dark shadow. He didn't want to be there, with the body of a young man that he had so spectacularly failed to protect, but there wasn't anyone else.

He was strangely grateful for Dar's steadying presence behind him. The younger spy was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking like a body guard and making the orderly somewhat nervous, but the Doctor didn't care. At least he wasn't alone in here.

"From what the first responders said, he was found on top of about three of the children, he'd thrown himself over them to protect them," the white coated technician told him, glancing nervously at Dar, and the Doctor nodded.

"He was a good lad," he murmured, wishing that there was more to say. Wishing that this life had not ended so soon. The empty place in his mind where Davian used to be was like an ache. There were too many gaps now and it hurt to think about.

"We need a name for the certificate, and if you could notify next of kin?" he asked gently.

"Davianarsonavanit, of the Arcalians," he told the man. "He was an orphan, we're the only family he had." He was fighting the rage in his guts, but it was so hard as that face, once so filled with sweetness and warmth, lay there, gray in death, bruised and cut up, the beauty of him wiped away. His Song stilled forever.

"Yes, sir," the man replied a trifle uncertainly and frowned at the page.

With a sigh, the Doctor patiently spelled out the boy's name. It was the last thing he could ever do for Davian, after all. Might as well do it right.

As soon as he was done, he looked down one last time at the boy, and sighed.

"I'm so sorry, Dav. I should have protected you better than this."

"We all should have," Dar muttered and he closed his eyes against the tears that were threatening to spill over.

The Doctor turned to go back to his children, his deadly shadow drifting behind him.

He tried to keep them all safe, to protect them, to give them futures and he kept failing, time and again.

* * *

Guinn was staring at the monitor and then he looked at Aislynn and opened the door.

"I can see Agent Chesterton, let's go enquire, shall we?" he asked.

"As you wish… I haven't proper identification, though, will that be a problem?"Aislynn pointed out.

"It'll be okay, don't you have Torchwood ID?" he asked, looking perplexed.

"We left Earth without notice, because we had received a Distress Chant from Logopolis. I was to receive paperwork, but it hadn't been completed at the time."

"Well, Agent Chesterton knows you, it'll be fine," he replied and headed out, flashing his badge at a very surprised police officer.

"Guinn Campbell, UNIT, and Aislynn Novia, Torchwood," he told the officer and waved at Agent Chesterton, calling her over.

Guinn paused and stared at the scene. Seeing it on the scanner hadn't quite prepared him for the reality of what had happened.

The whole house had been flattened. Pieces of rubble and chunks of masonry were strewn for hundreds of feet around the area and the wreckage was still smouldering. Jackie's gardens had been trampled down, first by the blast, then by the paramedics and firemen as they worked to free people, the gravel walkway had been blasted clear even.

The air had an acrid tang, a mix of burning materials and the foam the firemen had laid on to put it out. It was swarming with first responders, reporters, and above them, helicopters and Zeppelins circled like carrion birds.

The house itself was just gone. charred fingers of wreckage stuck up in places, but the rest of the place had been spread out over a very wide area.

"They were damn lucky anyone survived at all," Cassie told him, as she walked up to them, looking grave and very unhappy. Guinn nodded at her and gestured at Aislynn.

"Agent Chesterton," Aislynn said politely. "We really must quit meeting at bomb sites. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, we do always seem to meet after a bomb has gone off," Cassie agreed. "Mike and I are fine, actually, but Ramani and Chris are dead. I don't think you ever met them, but they were damn good agents." She shook her head in sorrow.

"I am so terribly sorry," Aislynn condoled her and Guinn nodded, glad that she was doing the talking just then. He pulled out his screwdriver and began doing scans for things that the Elysium's sensors were not tuned for.

"Let me walk you over, without a badge, you're a civvie here and London's finest get a bit touchy," she explained. "Pete..," she stopped, eyes filling with tears that she dashed away angrily. "Pete said you were going to join us soon, so no doubt Geneva will work her magic and get you all squared."

"How did someone even get in, I know you lot always have a perimeter around his house!" Guinn asked.

"We don't know. No one came in or out. We know that because we have cameras on the place." She shook her head.

"How did they survive?" Guinn asked as the readings told him of the total structural collapse of the house.

"They were all in the front hall, it's been specially reinforced, it's the only thing that saved them," Mike told them as he came walking up. He was smoking a cigarette, his hands clenched, and his face thunderous.

"How are they?" Cassie asked.

"Davian died," Guinn answered, his voice sounding calmer than he felt.

"Loren might not make it and Arista, we don't know yet. Pete had Jenny and Jamie under him, shielded them from the worst of it."

"God," Mike bit out.

"What kind of monster kills little children?" Cassie asked and Guinn winced.

"They've done it before," he reminded her and she nodded.

"Yeah, I know, but it backfired so badly on them, I never imagined that they would do it again."

"The chance to kill so many? Must have been too tempting," Mike spat out, looking disgusted.

Aislynn had been silent, checking around with her tuning sonic.

"Guinn… come and look at this." Her face was grim. "Do tell me I'm wrong, won't you?

Guinn walked over and scanned the area she was concentrating on, and scowled thunderously as he grasped what he was seeing.

"What?" Mike asked. "I know that look, the Doctor gets it too."

"There are traces of Vortex energy and temporal residue," Guinn admitted.

"Which means what in English?" Cassie asked.

"A TARDIS was here. That's how they got in and out without your seeing anything," he sighed and the Torchwood Agents both stared at him in stunned silence.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Being the Enemy

"Wait, what? A TARDIS? A Time Lord did all this? Why would a Time Lord attack Pete Tyler?" Mike sputtered and Guinn shook his head.

"Two children are missing, Justinian and Freeya. They weren't in hospital and their bodies aren't in the wreckage," he explained.

"So what, two kids stole a TARDIS and there was some sort of accident?" Cassie asked and he shook his head again.

"No. It means that somewhere out there is a renegade Time Lord, with a TARDIS and two hostages," he told them and closed his eyes against the sudden resurgence of terror.

"One that you lot didn't know about?" Cassie asked, looking perplexed.

"Apparently," Guinn admitted. "I don't know why this has happened, I only know that it has and that we have a duty and responsibility to stop this person and rescue the children." He almost couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. He sounded like the Doctor, he realized and part of him wanted to burst into laughter at the thought. He controlled himself savagely, thinking about Freeya and how scared she must be right now.

"This is insane," Mike told them with a dark anger in his eyes.

"I know," Guinn agreed and the two agents nodded at them and left to get back to work. "Lady Aislynn," he began and then hesitated. "Can I beg an indulgence?"

"You may," Aislynn said, as if it was quite commonplace for people to beg indulgences of her.

"Could you and Commander Taydin let me run a full reconstruction scan from the Elysium?" he asked, with a look of apology on his face. He knew that spending time around him must be painful for her and he hated to add to her suffering, but he needed to know exactly what had happened here.

Aislynn looked at Taydin, both their faces unreadable and their energy carefully shielded.

"I think we'd better, don't you?" she murmured.

"Yes," he replied and gestured Guinn back towards the TARDIS.

"Thank you, I ... hate to ask, I'm sorry," Guinn told them, still expecting her to slice him apart with her contempt.

Aislynn shook her head.

"There are two hostages involved. We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure their safe recovery."

"Yes, of course, thank you." Guinn replied, understanding that it was the children's safety that she was thinking of, rather than her own comfort and Aislynn gestured him forwards.

"You do understand that I am still deeply under the influence of the old Time Lord Nanites?"she asked him with a tenseness underneath her calm demeanour that made him feel terribly guilty.

"I know, we are working to undo that... in our copious spare time," he replied feeling a sense of tired resignation, as they walked into the console room.

"There are certain topics about which I am not at liberty to speak," she told him. "The upgrades installed to the Elysium during the War…. are one of those topics."

"Then I won't ask," he replied with a shrug. "It's not like I didn't design some of them, after all." He gave her a wry smile. He had actually designed nearly all of them, but he felt as though that wasn't perhaps a prudent thing to say. She might not feel comfortable in her ship, if she knew how much of himself he'd poured into her.

"Precisely," she smiled at him, though it was a mere polite stretching of the lips, and moved to the scanners. He still felt it was a terribly brave thing, that smile.

The screens in the Elysium were floating holographic projections: the one in the console room was enormous. It showed a scan of the house, and its foundations, first photographically, then in several different sorts of views.

"Here, let me add you… all right, the permissions are added, please proceed with the reconstruction." She stepped aside for him and he felt a surge of gratitude. He would not have blamed her, had she treated him with scathing contempt, or even icy disdain, but instead, she was gracious and calm and he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

He deserved none of it, but he was profoundly relieved, nonetheless.

* * *

Guinn gave her a look, double checking that she hadn't changed her mind, and at her nod, moved to the controls and began to refine and alter the scans. He worked with confidence and skill, his knowledge of the systems allowing him to make them jump through hoops for him. When he was working, all the diffidence and nervousness fell away and he became intent and focused.

Aislynn watched him as he worked and wondered who he might have been if Rassilon hadn't destroyed him as a child.

It was certainly food for thought.

"There. That's it, I believe, that's the TARDIS… wait… wasn't that the one parked across from us in the plaza at Logopolis?" Aislynn asked, frowning as her mind raced through all the possibilities raised by the data.

"Yes, it's Adie's. We suspect that Tomoko stole it." He continued to work, tracing energy signatures back to their sources, and imploding the bombs, putting each piece back together and then watching the explosions again in very slow motion.

"Isn't Tomoko the girl who was so injured during the piercing of the Entropy Bubbles? Why would she do such a thing? What is she even doing out of bed? Is her healing factor that fast…?"

"Yes, I don't know, I don't know, no, because Susan was upgrading her to a full Time Lord, using a rather dodgy process, in a desperate attempt to save her life," he said with a frown and then pointed to the screens.

"The mass ratio for the TARDIS shows the presence of either two adults, or one adult and two children," he told them and Taydin looked at him, his eyebrows rising in disbelief.

"That's not supposed to be able to do that," he pointed out and Guinn smiled up at him suddenly. When he smiled, he looked pleasant, Aislynn mused. He almost seemed like someone she could actually like. A thought that made her rather uncomfortable. He was radically different than he had been, when she'd known him on the Command Centre.

"Oh yes it is, if you do it right," he corrected.

"We have one adult and two children missing," mused Aislynn.

"Yes," he took a breath. "So, we were all on the Command Centre. You no doubt recall the problems with the people jacking into its computer systems and then suddenly going mad?"he asked and Aislynn nodded, not liking where he was going with this. "Tomoko hacked into that system," he told her and his face was very unhappy.

Aislynn brought up a second holographic screen out of thin air. She wrote rapidly in the air and the screen filled with mathematical symbols.

"Tell me, this… 'dodgy process'... does it produce real Time Lords? True Time Lords, such as ourselves?"

"I'm not sure how to answer that, Lady Aislynn. Tomoko, Diana and all the rest were cloned from Adyra, the Doctor's niece. They were never exposed to the Untempered Schism and so remained Gallifreyans, not making the change. The process the Rani developed acts as an accelerated version of that change. So, would you consider them 'true Time Lords' or not?" he asked.

"The similarities you describe would put us within three decimal places, which is more than sufficient for the equation's purposes." She enlarged the screen several times, filling it with symbols, then stepped back.

"If Tomoko hacked into this system," Aislynn murmured. "If she brought something back with her, presumably some sort of Time Lord programming, or possibly even a presence, then it would likely not have been able to express itself properly here or here, while she remained in her original form. Particularly with the overheating issues. However, after conversion, we move here and here, when even the most complicated or sophisticated programming could have expressed itself fully."

"Yes, Aislynn, I can read the equations, thank you," he murmured absently, staring at the numbers with a deep frown. "This is not very good at all. If your numbers are correct, and I can see no errors in them, we have a serious problem."

Aislynn looked surprised and then bowed politely at him.

"Forgive the oversight," she said. "It is not often I meet someone who can follow along as I write. No offence was intended."

"Sorry, didn't mean to sound prickly," he told her, looking up in surprise. "It's just that I've been doing Maths at the fourteenth level since I was a child." He frowned and took out a stylus, doing a quick series of notations, using his knowledge of the genetic engineering done on the girls to expand on her numbers. "You're really good though, by the way, probably a touch better than I am, actually." He told her with a small smile. "Pure mathematics has always been subordinated to the practical aspects of engineering for me, so I haven't the same level of skill developed that you have."

"I've been hypnotized by the beauty of the Song ever since I can remember," she smiled at him, suddenly feeling an affinity for him that she hadn't expected.

"There is something utterly soothing and peaceful in the dance of numbers, the way they can pull order out of chaos," he replied, scribbling his notations as he talked to her.

"Yes," Taydin agreed. "It's a language of infinite grace." He stepped forward and corrected a line of Guinn's. Guinn pondered the change and nodded, altering another line to take new information into account.

"That's it," Aislynn's finger stabbed down on the equations he had just written. "Just there, that's the variable…. by Omega! What did she bring back with her?"

"Something that allowed her to steal a TARDIS and manage somehow to capture two children," he told her, his face filled with worry and unhappiness.

Aislynn put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Easy," she soothed. "We'll get them back." Her eyes went back over the equations he had written.

"We'd better," he told her and looked at her. "The Doctor is a good man, but... he's very upset right now."

"As he should be. Looking at this… I doubt it was something. I think it was more likely someone."

"Aislynn," he murmured and began writing out a series of equations that chilled her blood. "Do you think... I mean... please tell me there is an error in my maths." He looked at her, his eyes pleading for him to be wrong.

Aislynn's eyes were round and they seemed an especially vivid emerald colour, as she read carefully over his notation. Finally, she shook her head.

"The equations are error-free," she said, "But, you knew that."

"Damn. I really, really wanted to be wrong this time."

"You are not through, Guinn," Taydin told him. "Rassilon has returned."

* * *

The Doctor got off the phone with Guinn and the anger in him finally had a focus. He knew what he had to do and it was something he'd done before, many times.

"So, it's him?" Dar asked and the Doctor nodded. "They're sure?"

"Quite sure," he replied and Dar hissed under his breath. He was about to ask him what he thought, when Susan burst into the hallway, looking around frantically for him.

"Grandfather!" Susan called.

"Yes?"

"Freeya and Justinian are missing!" she told him.

"Yes, Guinn just told me that Tomoko used Adie's TARDIS to kidnap two children from Pete's house and then to escape. He thinks it was Rassilon controlling her." Susan's face went pale and she closed her eyes.

"What is it?"

"There's something I need to tell you," she began, but he cut her off.

"Not now, we need to get after them, before something else happens," he snapped at her and then moved away, determined to find Rose.

"No!" she insisted, following after him. "You have to listen to me now!"

"Doctor, this might be important," Dar suggested mildly, he spun to lash out at the spy, before he forced himself to stop and calm down.

"Very well," he agreed.

"When we ran the gene-scans on all the War Orphans, I found that Justinian was Rassilon's clone," she told him and he froze. Dar stepped forwards, eyes intent on her.

"Why didn't you tell us this?" he asked her softly.

"Because what kind of childhood would he have if people knew, if they were always watching him, wondering?" she asked and the Doctor forced himself to think through the haze of anger that was burning inside of him.

"He has nightmares," the Doctor told her and she looked up at him in sudden concern. "Donna told me, he dreams of being murdered, over and over again." Susan's eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.

"We can't let that happen," she told him and he nodded.

"I'm going to get Rose and then we're going after them," he told her and she looked at him and then down the hallway to where the children were.

"I can't go this time," she told him. "They need me here. Professor Boma, Terelinian, and Doctor Argas, another of the Command Centre survivors, are Trans Matting in, but there are so many injured..." she trailed off, looking torn between her instincts as a doctor and her need to go with them, to help Freeya and Justinian.

"Stay here, Susan, take care of my children," he told her and kissed her gently on her forehead.

"Take care of my husbands, please," she asked in return, but there was an exasperated undertone that made him smile at her.

"I'll try, but it won't be easy," he warned and she shook her head in resigned understanding.

"We'll do our best, Princess," Dar snorted dubiously and she grinned at him briefly.

"Oh, I know," she sighed. "I just got Guinn patched up, too," she grumbled as she walked away. The Doctor stared at the wall unseeingly for a long moment, wondering what horrors Justinian was suffering just then.

A ten year old boy should be more worried about school work than about some madman coming to destroy him.

"Come on Doctor, let's get the others and go kick Rassilon into the nearest black hole," Dar muttered and he closed his eyes briefly.

"That sounds like an excellent course of action," he replied and then went after Rose.

There was work to be done.

* * *

Tomoko gestured, and both children walked inside their cell.

The orange-themed desktop had been entirely inadequate for housing prisoners; but the previous one had been saved and had all of the facilities she needed. The sleek black Goth look might not have been stylish, but she didn't care in the least just then. What it did have was extremely secure housing that would allow her to stop controlling the children like marionettes, and turn her attention to other things. The cell had a cot mattress, sink, toilet, and a force-field door, and would suffice.

She shut the door behind them and activated the forcefield, never actually looking at them, as she did so. She left them there without a word and they huddled together in the cell.

She returned to the console room and began checking over her progress.

Things were going rather well so far.

"Doctor Foreman," the middle-aged, balding man in his wrinkled blue shirt and tatty jeans, tugged at her sleeve and Susan turned to look at him in surprise. She was wearing a white coat, like all the other doctors, but she had no name badge on and she wondered how he knew her name.

"Yes, Mr...?" she asked.

"Hoskill, doctor," he replied in an East End accent.

"How can I help you, Mr. Hoskill?" she asked and he looked at her with a pleading expression.

"I knows that you lot are aliens, that you know things that we don't. I read about it in the papers, see?" he began and she nodded. "My son, Allan, he's sick and they say as they have no cure. I don't suppose that you could come and look?"

She opened her mouth to refuse, citing all the many reasons that the spread of technology was harmful to the planet and how she had to limit it carefully, then she stopped and looked at the proud man who had come to her and humbly begged her help to save his son. She was a doctor. She had a duty and an obligation.

"Of course, Mr. Hoskill, I'll come at once," she replied and grabbed up her satchel.

"This is my nightmare," Justinian told Freeya, sinking to his knees on the floor of the cell, his face white and strained.

"It's a nightmare for all of us," she replied, carefully studying the mechanics of the door lock.

"No, I mean, that I have had this specific nightmare before," he explained and shook his head. "Why can't I wake up this time?"

"Because this is real!" she snapped back, looking at the lock.

"But, you always say that," he told her and she turned and kicked him savagely. "Ow!"

"Do I always do that?" she asked with a frown and he shook his head. "Then this is real!"

"I have this nightmare. I've been having it all my life. In it Rassilon comes and takes you and me away and then he takes over my mind and my body and I wake up in the morning knowing that I died," he told Freeya, tears running down his face. "I'm going to die."

"No one is going to die, Justin!" Freeya replied, her voice steady. "We're going to get out of here. Koschei will come for us."

"No, there's no way out. She takes me, puts me in a machine, and then I die," he sobbed and Freeya looked at him steadily.

"So, tell me one thing, Justin," she said and he looked up at her. "In that dream?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you ever see anything like that?" she asked and pointed to a holographic projection that was standing in the corridor, watching them. It was a cartoon version of the woman who'd imprisoned them and Justin stared at it for long moments.

"No, that wasn't in my dream," he told her.

"Good," Freeya replied in a satisfied tone. "Didn't think so."

"Prisoner One, identification Freeyalandria: Prisoner Two, identification Justinian: Status Report?" said Tomoko Construct.

"We're okay, except I got this collar on," Freeya replied.

"The collar has been welded on and will require manual assistance to open."

"Is it booby-trapped?" she asked the hologram.

"Affirmative."

"Drat, that's what I was afraid of," the little girl sighed and looked around. "Whose TARDIS is this anyway?" she asked.

"TARDIS current ownership: Rassilon."

"Right. Who owned it before?" she asked patiently.

"TARDIS prior ownership: Adyralessialliannevanova."

"That's no help. Anyone else?" she asked again.

"TARDIS historical ownership: Master, The."

"Now that is helpful!" Freeya told the construct with a broad grin. "Try these codes," she suggested and began rattling off a series of numbers and letters.

"Cataloguing," Tomoko construct said. After several minutes she responded, "All codes are non-responsive. The current owner has deleted all historical password data from all systems."

"Even in secondary systems? Or the stand alone systems in the workshop?"

"Only non-critical secondary systems remain untouched. Stand-alone systems of a non-critical nature remain accessible."

"Right. Get yourself uploaded to as many secondary systems as you can. The Master always put in a back door to everything. He often hard codes them into the machinery and he built this TARDIS from the ground up. Get sneaky!" Freeya instructed.

"Freeya... how do you know all this?" Justinian asked.

"Oh please, he's my cousin!" she snarked.

"Yeah, I know that," Justinian looked at her in confusion. "He's been dead for ages though."

"No he hasn't! He's Koschei, you dork!" she shot back, using a word that Toby liked to say a lot.

"What? Koschei? No way!" he shot back and she rolled her eyes at him. "No one told me that!" Justinian protested. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because! He doesn't like being reminded of it. He hates that he used to be like that and he's my cousin, so I have to take care of him," she retorted angrily.

"How long have you known?" he demanded.

"I always knew," she replied. "The first time I ever went to see him, I was curious about him. I'd heard so many stories from my Mum." She stopped that train of thought instantly. She had no time to start crying. "Now, you, what's your name and user code?" she asked the hologram.

"My designation is Tomoko Construct 2. My user code is 56342," she replied.

"Great. Tomoko Construct 2, we are going to engineer a jail break and save the universe, okay?" Freeya informed her with a fierce frown.

"Jailbreak has been designated Plan D. Commencing upload… upload complete. Commencing upload… upload complete. Commencing upload…"

"Right. Time to kick Rassilon's arse," Freeya muttered, arms crossed over her chest, and Justinian looked up at her and slowly began to smile.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - No Good Options

Jake looked up from the phone and his face was hard and angry.

"I understand, I'm on my way," he bit out and looked at Diana. "We're going to Earth, there's been another bombing. Jackie and Pete and the kids. Their house is gone."

Diana had already been picking up her sand gun and shrugging on her jacket when she had seen the expression on his face change, now she turned to him, her jacket half-on, the other sleeve forgotten, and looked at him with big round eyes.

"Oh, Jake!"

"Yeah. Davian died, the rest are in hospital," he told her and he was now moving towards the door.

Diana shrugged on her jacket, holstered the sand gun in its spot, and grabbed a small cloth bag filled with ammo for it.

"Let's go."

"We'll take the Trans Mat to Torchwood One, they have a car waiting." He paused and took a breath. "I'm acting Head of Operations, Diana. He left me in charge..." He shook his head and slammed through the door.

"Good on him. No one better to leave in charge. You point me, and I'll go."

"No. Not good. This is bad. I am not the guy to be in charge here. I'm a shooter, a field agent. I can't do what he does," Jake disagreed.

"You're a strategist with a good head on your shoulders. You will never, ever convince me that anyone else could step into Pete's shoes in a crisis like this. Not even the Doctor could do it. He'd jump in, wave his sonic around, and be gone again."

"Diana, you don't get it. I can't be the diplomat, the salesman, the guy who gets union reps to go along with him. That's not me. Pete does that stuff," Jake retorted.

"It is you. Who talked down all the Mashas when we found out that Guinn was going to be allowed to live? Wasn't me!"

"That was inspiring the troops, talking to the other soldiers. This is different. I can't explain," he shook his head. "I'm only good in combat."

"This is combat," Diana countered. "Someone blew up Pete's house and we are going to find them and pound their heads into the pavement."

He shook his head, gave her a sad little smile, and kissed her gently.

"Never mind, Angel, let's go." He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed as he walked. "Cassie? Yeah, good to talk to you too, get yourself to T-One and sit in the Big Chair till I get back, okay?" There was a pause as Diana could hear a stream of invective coming from the phone. "Because he left me in charge, that's why, and I am leaving you in charge, while I go find them." Another pause and more rather creative epithets. "I know, sorry, but it's Pete." There was now silence on the other end and then a soft reply. "Thanks, Cassie, I owe you." With that, he folded up the phone and marched into the Trans Mat station, punching the code for Earth.

"Give her a 'big chair bonus,'" suggested Diana as she stepped in with him. "Sort of like hazard pay, but more like, dealing-with-politics pay."

"No, what she really wants is me to bring the heads of whoever killed our people. We lost Ramani and Chris. They were on duty guarding Pete and Jackie."

For the second time in five minutes Diana was looking at him witha shocked expression.

"They're dead? Oh Jake, I'm so sorry!"

"Yeah, she wants their heads, so, let's go get them for her," he growled and they vanished from Gallifrey.

* * *

Aislynn, Guinn, and Taydin finished the scan and Guinn frowned.

"I think we've learned everything we can from here," Guinn told them. "We should report back to the Doctor."

"Agreed," Aislynn said. "I've transmitted everything to him ahead of us, but we'll be there in a moment," she said as Taydin punched in the coordinates and then she hit the de-materialization switches. She frowned at Guinn, but in a thoughtful way.

"You say that this girl hacked this system? The one in which we believe Rassilon was originally contained? Can you be more specific on precisely what happened with that?"

"That's the thing, I really can't. I knew the system was having issues. We had two Time Lords jack in and then go crazy shortly after," he explained. "But, we didn't know why."

"And it wasn't dismantled on the spot?" Aislynn sounded shocked.

"No, Rassilon said it was their 'operator error' that caused the problem. I forbade anyone else from doing a brain-to-brain interface with the computers after that, despite Rassilon's orders, but Tomoko thought I just meant a 'jack', she used a different interface device instead, but it was essentially the same," he explained and Aislynn was silent for several seconds, looking at Guinn thoughtfully.

"The mathematics… well, this may be painful to you personally," she looked at him with some concern.

"Don't mind that, Aislynn, I deserve whatever comes from all this," he waved her concern off wearily.

"I would debate that, but we really haven't time for an extended conversation about philosophy. Mathematically, I can't tell what the mental status of that girl may be. You, obviously, eventually recovered your personality, after Rassilon's possession was removed. I can't tell whether the same will hold true for her. It may or may not, but without more information, there is no way to know."

"He bound me up in compulsions, Aislynn, he never directly possessed me, there is a difference. Even so, the damage to my psyche was extensive. I am not sure that I really have fully recovered my personality. I was eight, after all, so I have little memory of who I used to be. As for Tomoko, I have little hope that there is anything left of her in there. He could have squashed her like a bug with little effort. Whether he did so or not, I don't know."

Aislynn closed her eyes for a moment.

"Agreed. The musical translations work properly only if resistance is basically non-existent. It looks very bad."

"Aislynn, as much as I worry for the girl, there are far more serious issues here. Rassilon must not be allowed to start playing his damnable games here in this universe, the way he did before. We have to stop him, no matter the cost to ourselves, billions of sentient lives depend on that," he informed her in agonized tones.

"Again, agreed. Does this girl have any… next of kin? Any relatives?"

"Me. I'm her father," he replied, feeling as though the words were each of them individual knives being shoved through his hearts.

Taydin and Aislynn both looked at him for a long moment and their eyes were blank and unreadable, then Aislynn nodded slowly.

"That's probably for the best," she said as the TARDIS materialized.

"Yes, I brought her into being, it's my responsibility and no one else's," he agreed and headed for the doors. "Damn Rassilon anyway," he grumbled and pushed into the airlock with a glower.

* * *

The Doctor looked up as he heard the materialization of a TARDIS, his hands still shaking a bit.

He'd gone to find his wife and, as soon as he had returned to the children's ward, he'd lost all urge to move away from it again. He was sitting beside his daughter's hospital bed, watching her chest rising and falling as she breathed. Tubes in her nose had been removed by Susan, who'd whirled through the wards making sure that the children weren't accidently killed by well-meaning human doctors, but the mark on her upper lip remained and she was still deeply asleep in a healing trance.

Her baby brother lay on the next bed, Rose holding his hand, his head swathed in bandages and his face, where it was visible, purple and blue from bruising. He looked so small and defenceless, so precious, and so vulnerable, that it broke his hearts.

Adie was standing quietly in the corner, with such a horribly lost, lonely expression that it was hard to look at her. She had barely said a word since they had arrived, but had simply stood like a sentinel, watching them all.

"Hostages to fate," he murmured and Rose looked up at him, her eyes equally bleak and nodded.

"Susan says they'll heal without any problems. She put them all under with no trouble, she says that's a good sign," Rose told him with forced cheer.

"Yes," he agreed, tracing his daughter's face with a tender gesture. "I've never been more grateful that Susan ignored me and became a doctor." He looked up and forced a small smile, for Rose's benefit rather than because he felt at all like smiling.

Soon, he'd have to leave them and go fight, but he found that he suddenly didn't want to. He knew what he had to do, what he must do, but he wanted nothing more than to sit beside his daughter and hold her hand until she woke up. He wanted to be here for her and the fact that he couldn't was tearing him apart.

For all his desperate rage at Rassilon, for all that he wanted to tear him apart for what he had done, he also wanted to stay right here and watch his little girl breathing. He was being torn apart inside by conflicting desires and he didn't know which way to go.

* * *

Adie kept an eye on them all and felt very naive, and very alone.

Somehow she had never imagined that people actually did bomb six-year olds. She had known it intellectually, but never really known it in her hearts, not really, not like this.

She leaned against the wall, watching them, and listening absent-mindedly to the echoing in her chest. Before it had been like a black hole, draining away her energies. It wasn't like that any longer; it was now more like a well, where it was possible to put one's ear to the ground and hear the distant, echoing drips of water, if one was very quiet. The overwhelming impression was still one of impossible, unimaginable distance.

Her bondmate was a desert soldier, a scout, and a spy: certainly a sensible man of the world. The Doctor was well experienced in everything imaginable, and even Rose had clearly been around the block a few times. She wondered if they ever got used to seeing small children in hospital beds… well not their own children, of course, one could never be expected to get used to that.

She just felt so young, ignorant, and helpless. She ought to know what to do, but she didn't. The only thing she could think of was just to try and be there for them. Not much of a plan, as plans went, but the best she could come up with.

Besides, looking at Jamie's and Jenny's still little faces, she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

* * *

Jake and Diana came into the cheerless green hospital room. They were ready for action, but had also clearly come at a moment's notice. Jake was wearing his Torchwood fatigues, but Diana was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, fingerless leather gloves, and a T-shirt.

"Rose?" Jake asked and she got up to go hug him tightly.

"Dad and Mum are alive. Mum's out of danger, though Dad is still listed as critical," Rose told him. "They're in Ward Six, Donna and Wilf are there with them. Susan walked in, starting waving her sonic, ordering people about, and Dad went from the doctors expecting him to die any minute, to merely being 'critical' in about half an hour."

"That's wonderful to hear," Jake said with a relieved nod. "What's our next move?"

Diana went to give the Doctor a hug, but the icy cold look on his face made her pause and move to hug Rose instead, who gave her one in return. The Doctor's face was like granite and fire and had no give in it at all.

He stood up and looked at Jake.

"We got information from Guinn and Aislynn. They went to the house and did some scans. It wasn't terrorists, it was Tomoko, she is being controlled by Rassilon. She stole Adie's TARDIS, kidnapped Freeya and Justinian. So, next move? We find out where Tomoko took them and what Rassilon is up to. We have to go stop him."

"I hear Aislynn's TARDIS materializing," Rose said, as she leaned down to kiss her son gently. "We should go."

"I hate leaving them," the Doctor whispered, his face breaking and the anguish in his eyes apparent for a moment, before he tucked it back away, but the pain in him made Diana's heart break.

"Susan will be here with them all, she won't leave them," Rose reminded him, thought she looked equally torn, and he nodded.

When Diana turned away from the children's beds, she was all business again. It was obvious that the Doctor was barely holding it together, so she felt she had to be strong now, for him.

"What do you mean, where Tomoko took Adie's TARDIS?" Diana asked.

"When she hacked into the station computers, Rassilon downloaded himself into her brain," the Doctor replied. "Which is why when someone tells you not to jack into a system, you really ought to listen!" he told her in a fierce tone and stomped out of the room.

Diana's hands went over her mouth.

"When I found her, she was just… staring. She was wearing the circlet and it was like she was asleep and I… I didn't realize anything..," she stammered to a halt.

"How could you?" Rose asked. "It wasn't as though he posted a big sign or anything." She shook her head and took Diana and Jake's hands, her fingers cold in theirs, and then led them from the room. She did not look back at her children, where they lay there, still and broken, but her hands were holding onto theirs with a convulsive strength that revealed her inner anguish with bitter clarity.

* * *

Aislynn, Taydin, and Guinn stepped out of her TARDIS to see a group coming towards them.

The Doctor, Rose, Jake, Diana, and then Koschei, running in from another hallway, gathered together.

"Sorry, had some troubles with Susan's TARDIS, but I did get all the humans back, Owen and Katie too," Koschei told them all breathlessly.

"Were you able to repair it? Susan's TARDIS?" the Doctor asked.

"Sort of, well, enough to get us here, but that's it," he sighed and Aislynn frowned.

"That sounds bad," she commented and, behind her, Taydin looked worried.

"Rassilon did something to the ship, I can't figure it out just yet. Still, Susan will have access to the TARDIS medi-bay and K-9's help, which is more important, just now."

"Are you aware of the current status?" she asked him and he exchanged glances with Guinn.

"Yeah, I've been kept up on developments," he replied and the two versions of the same man had expressions that matched each other in grimness.

"Shall we go then? The Elysium is equipped with excellent tracking systems."

"Yes, if you please," the Doctor replied, his eyes distant and hard. The courtesy made Aislynn's eyebrow rise. The Doctor must be truly dismayed, if he hadn't even the ability to be rude.

"Susan?" Guinn asked Koschei, who shook his head.

"Staying here to care for the injured," he replied and Guinn nodded, looking suddenly relieved.

"Good." Koschei nodded back at him, the two of them obviously in agreement on that. Aislynn wondered what they were thinking, as Susan was obviously better at keeping herself alive and out of trouble than they were. Still, it wasn't her place to judge.

Aislynn unlocked the door and they all filled in behind her, none of the usual joking or laughter between them.

"Koscheis, if you would be so good as to handle the sensors, Doctor, Rose?" She gestured to the central column and took her own station there, Taydin taking the co-pilot's position as usual. Adyra took the position that normally the Koscheis would have had, while they worked on enhancing the sensor readings.

They all fell into place, flying the ship, six pilots moving together as one. Normally, it would have been a joyous thing, but now it was just a grim trip that they all had to make.

The ship materialized on one of the Command Centre docking station pads. The door opened and Guinn went first, making sure that the security remained off, none of them were sure that Rassilon hadn't returned and mucked about after all.

"No sign that anyone has been here," Guinn told them and waved them all out.

Aislynn shuddered visibly upon setting foot on the station and grasped her cane rather tightly, but said nothing, walking forwards somewhat unsteadily, Taydin's hand on her elbow, following the others.

"Thank you," she said to him in an undertone. "There are… many commands involved in this place. The fact that I am able to walk around relatively freely… well let's hope it means that I am making progress, hm?" she smiled at him, but she was very pale and it was clearly difficult to move about. Still, her face allowed for no pity and he merely nodded at her in understanding.

"Command and Control, then?" the Doctor suggested, Rose's hand in his as they walked through the hallways, the holographic people going through their ghostly routines around them.

"Sounds good," Dar agreed.

Guinn was already at the computer controls when they got there and he was frowning fiercely at the login history.

"It's not here," he grumbled and Koschei came to lean over his shoulder.

"Of course it isn't," Diana looked at him as if he was rather thick. "Have you ever actually talked to Tomoko about her philosophy of hacking? If you leave tracks, it's a sloppy job, or so she has told me on many occasions. Or else, you leave tracks that you want your follower to find."

"Yes, but there should have been something, some trace that the computers were active at all, you cannot make energy usage disappear without access to the underlying machine code and there is no way that she could have hacked that, no matter how clever she is."

"Why not?"

"Because she didn't exist in enough dimensions, at that point, to access it!" Guinn shouted. "Humans are not capable of properly hacking Time Lord computers, because our systems span more dimensions than they are capable of perceiving."

"Right, but Rassilon was there, wasn't he? Isn't this where she picked him up?"

"Which is what we were trying to tell everyone, before you interrupted," Koschei told her calmly, his hand on Guinn's shoulder. "Rassilon has erased the tracks."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's all right," Koschei soothed. "We know how clever Tomoko is, Guinn designed her brain, after all, but there are limitations. Now we have to figure out exactly what Rassilon was planning."

Rose ushered everyone from the room, except for Koschei, Guinn, the Doctor, and Darginian, who bent their heads together over the computers and went to work.

"Let's let them alone, everyone's tempers are a bit frayed," she told them soothingly, but Diana still looked a bit disgruntled.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Into the Dark

They stepped back out into the hallway and made their way into the food court, looking around. Adie looked uncertain, but then went with them.

"I guess we can eat," Jake suggested and looked at the booths. "Who's up for fried eyeballs, or whatever that is?" There were some generalized shrugs and then Adie showed them how to use the replicators to get themselves some food.

Rose was picking at her food, though Adie could hardly blame her for that. Jake ate like a machine being fuelled, with intensity, but no joy. Diana ate almost absently, paying no attention to the food, but watching Jake with worried eyes.

They all ate quietly, none of them feeling much like just chatting.

* * *

A few moments after they had finished eating, the Doctor, Dar, and Koschei came out of the bridge's automatic doors with unhappy looks. Rose looked up at him with a sinking feeling. When he was quite that stiff, his fury was barely being held in check and right now he looked rather "Oncoming Storm"-y to her.

"We just got a call from the Shadow Architect, looks like someone has stolen a Police Cruiser, a big one. The sent us an image from one of the security cameras, which looks a lot like it was Tomoko stealing it," the Doctor told them. "The Architect wants us there as fast as possible."

"What did she want a police cruised for when she already had my TARDIS?" Adie scowled.

"We'll figure out the reasons at some point, Guinn is going to stay here and keep working on the computers, he can Trans Mat out when he's done," Koschei told them, as they headed back to Aislynn's TARDIS. Aislynn was looking very shaky, but inserted the key as usual.

"I used to consult for the Shadow Proclamation," Aislynn mused, looking far better the instant she had returned to the control room. "But I suppose I shall have to introduce myself all over again here."

"Fraid so," the Doctor sighed. "I certainly had to, they were not very polite about it either."

"You have such a way with people," Rose teased with a small smile at him. "Maybe if you hadn't been yelling at the Shadow Architect, it would have gone more smoothly."

* * *

"So, Rassilon's in Tomoko's body?" Diana asked, her face scrunched up in thought.

"So it would seem," the Doctor replied.

Diana was silent for a while, then pulled Jake into the hallway, so that they could speak without being overheard.

"Do you think we can get her back?" she asked him, "Or is she basically a casualty at this point?"

"I don't know. The Doc and the others, they haven't tried to cheer us up at all, which tells me that it's really, really bad," Jake told her softly. "If they thought they could save her, they'd have said so."

"I ought to be the one to do it," she looked at him steadily. "Tomoko wouldn't have wanted her… her corpse to be traipsing about bombing children." Her face was very hard as she said this.

"I'd hold off on anything fatal until the Doc and the others have run out of brilliant ideas," he told her. "Just cause they haven't thought of anything yet, doesn't mean that they won't."

"I'm getting my things anyway," she said, and headed down to the hallway, heading for the room she had once occupied aboard the Elysium.

* * *

Freeya carefully put the panel back and eyed it trying to make certain that it didn't look like she'd opened it. Rassilon might be a crazy monster, but he was a really smart, crazy monster and he'd already scotched two of her plans with TC2 simply by anticipating that someone might try something.

She tapped her teeth with the piece of circuit she'd managed to pull out.

There weren't a lot of critical lines running through the brig, because of exactly the sorts of things that she wanted to do to escape. Still, if one were really good at what you did, or had a genius AI helping you, she conceded mentally, there were still things that even an eleven year old could do. Well, a brilliant eleven year old, anyway, she chortled to herself.

Her first priority was to get Koschei and the others to find them.

"The picture of Tomoko was sent to the Shadow Proclamation, as you instructed," Tomoko Construct informed her and Freeya nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden appearance of the AI.

"Good. They'll call Koschei and he'll go to investigate. Is the leak big enough for them to follow?" she asked the two dimensional projection with a frown.

"Calculating for the advantages that the Elysium's Sensor Suite provides, then the trail is sufficiently traceable, without being noticed by the Opposition," she replied and Freeya nodded.

"How's Justinian?" she asked softly and TC2 gave her a cartoon frown.

"Progress on upgrading Prisoner Designated Justinian appears to be successfully progressing. He continues to exist," she replied and Freeya sighed at the limitations of the AI.

"I know he's still alive, I can feel that," she replied. "Is he okay, though?"

"Please define the parameters of "okay"," the construct requested and Freeya furrowed her brow in thought.

"Is he in pain?" she finally asked.

"He is in significant amounts of pain, judging by external evidence," Tomoko Construct replied, sounding a bit subdued.

"We have to work faster," she mumbled and pulled the panel back open to see if there was some other way to jam up the TARDIS, or make it more visible to Koschei.

* * *

Susan ran through the test results and read the scans, even though she'd gotten all the information she'd needed from her medical scanner. She was trying to decide what to do and the fussing with reading through his medical history was just a cover for that.

Allan, his father, mother, young wife and young son, were all looking at her hopefully and she was thinking very hard about rules and how far she was willing to go to follow them. She looked at the face of the little boy, standing beside his mother and looking up at her in hopeful anticipation.

He was about eight she guessed, old enough to know what he could lose and young enough to be praying for miracles. His mother looked less certain, she had the look of someone who wanted desperately to believe, yet wasn't able to handle yet another disappointment.

It was a simple thing for her to do. A tumour, in a bad place, but easy enough for her to remove with a Nanite Swarm.

It was also one of the technologies that they had all decided was just too advanced to hand over to humanity yet. She fought with herself and then an idea occurred to her.

"I know how to remove the tumour safely," she told them with a smile. "I need to go talk to the Chief Surgeon, see if he has a surgical ward that we can borrow for a few hours."

"You can cure him?" his wife asked and her face was pale with shock and dawning hope.

"Yes, but it's a delicate surgical procedure. The tumour has wrapped itself around his medulla oblongata. Removing it, without causing paralysis, will be cautious work," she warned.

"I don't care!" she cried and dropped her head into her hands. "If he lives, I don't care if he can walk or not!"

Susan nodded and went to find the Chief Surgeon at once. She knew the surgical method was more risky, as it was a more primitive solution, but it would save his life and do so without her having to contravene the rules that they had worked out with the Shadow Proclamation.

It was the best she could do and it wasn't a bad thing at all.

* * *

Justinian had been brought back only an hour before and already the machine was ready. Freeya wasn't quite sure what it did, but she didn't like the sound of Neural Pathway Recalibrator one bit. It scared Justinian to death as well. Freeya was thinking as hard as she could, but she couldn't think of a way to stop what was happening. Her plans with Tomoko Construct 2 were still in the early stages.

Justin was staring at Freeya, terror in his eyes, as Tomoko stood in the doorway and gestured him forwards. Freeya reached out and took his hand, thinking of all the times they had fought and insulted each other, and it all seemed so stupid suddenly.

"Goodbye Freeya," he said sadly, tears in his eyes, and Freeya was crying too. He hugged her, holding onto her tightly and she was sobbing into his shoulder. She had thought the jailbreak plan would go fast enough to save him. She'd been wrong.

"Please don't!" she begged Tomoko, who looked at her blankly.

"It's for the best, you'll see," she assured the little girl and Freeya recoiled from the ice in her eyes.

"He'll die," she whispered, still trying to convince the woman to leave him alone and Justinian was staring at Tomoko with expression of wide-eyed fear.

"Well, of course, but there have to be sacrifices, I'm afraid," the pixie-faced woman with her short cropped brown hair replied, looking surprised by her protests. "I'm Gallifrey's only hope, you see, without me, they simply can't survive and I can't live in her body indefinitely, it's not a matching bio-receptacle, while his is." The woman gestured at Justinian, who shuddered in horror as she spoke.

"Please, he's my friend!" she gasped out, trying to think through the suffocating fear.

"Then you should be happy for him. He's going to rule the universe," she told him and smiled coldly, with no trace of compassion.

"No!" Justinian screamed and lashed out at her. With a grimace, she turned and marched off, dragging him away, even as he continued to fight fists and feet seemingly doing nothing to dissuade or even slow down the possessed woman.

"Justin!" she screamed as the door shut between the cells and the main hallway. The sudden silence was eerie and she was trembling in fear, shaking so hard she could barely stand up.

Freeya sank down onto the floor of her cell and burst into tears, sobbing frantically.

"Koschei will come, Koschei will come, Koschei will come," she chanted like a spell to protect herself.

It was all she had left just then.

* * *

Freeya was curled up on the floor of her cell, sobbing. She'd felt Justin die. He'd been screaming faintly in her head and she'd tried to reach out to him, but her telepathy was too weak to make proper contact. She was ten years old and she'd already lost her father, her mother, her elder sister, her grandparents and so many others. So, when she felt Justin's mind snuff out, like a radio station suddenly being silenced, she knew what it meant.

She buried her face in her hands and wept for a while longer, trying to feel like there was some hope left somewhere in the universe.

For the first time in her life, Freeya was actually hoping that the Doctor would come. The man who'd killed her family, her world, was the lesser of two evils just then. She was so scared by that thought, that she started crying again.

* * *

They arrived at the Shadow Proclamation Headquarters and opened the doors.

The Shadow Architect's secretary, a plump little albino woman with her hair piled upon her head smiled at them all as they stepped out.

"I am to take you to her office directly, Doctor, along with your associates," she announced and the Doctor merely nodded and followed after her.

"So, tell me about the theft of the ship, if you please," the Doctor asked her and she frowned.

"I can tell you little about what has happened, though I have been quite worried about what is about to happen," she told him with a shake of her head.

"What is about to happen?" he asked in rising alarm and she looked up at him with a sigh.

"The bugs are coming back," she told him earnestly and the Doctor froze in sudden horror.

* * *

Alarms suddenly began to blare and shouting could be heard in the distance. Koschei started and whipped out his laser screwdriver, scanning for the source of the trouble. Looking around he saw that Guinn was standing next to Taydin, Aislynn and Dar were slightly further back, and he was standing beside Rose. The Doctor had his sonic out as well, he noted.

"What's going on?" Rose asked him and as Koschei turned to answer her, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. On Rose's back, peeking out from under her collar, was a small silver insect. It was impossible to tell what kind it was.

He opened his mouth to shout a warning, raising a hand to knock it away from her, but as he did so, a stasis field bloomed around him, as if the moon had suddenly risen in the middle of the corridor. Simultaneously, another stasis field materialized into existence around Rose, a second moon twinned with the first one. they were propelled away from each other by the two fields colliding and he found himself bouncing down the hallway.

* * *

Aislynn heard a crunching noise, as part of the floor and wall buckled, and then, to her horror, the hallway was covered in a solid wall of glittering silver insects.

The decking beneath her gave way under Aislynn's feet. She shrieked as she plummeted downwards, grabbing frantically at the broken edge of the floor. Her arms were wrenched in their sockets as her fall was abruptly stopped by her grip on the edge. She clung on by her fingers, feeling the metal flooring cutting into her fingers.

She risked a look down, to see how far the fall was and nearly lost her grip as she jerked away from the sight beneath her. The surface down below was covered by a horde of silver insects ... and standing in the midst of them was Tomoko

She looked up at Aislynn and her gaze was not the frank assessing look of the woman she had spoken to on Logopolis. An arrogant smirk creased her lips and her energy flared out of her with more power and a terrible weight of age and knowledge that made Aislynn's hearts hammer. She had last been in the presence of that particular energy many years back, but she would never forget the acrid tang of fear that it produced in her.

Above Tomoko's brow, a silvery insect was perched and then more of them peeked out from under her hair, all turning to look at Aislynn with an intelligence and intent that chilled her blood. They ringed her head like a living crown of silver and her smile as she looked up at Aislynn was anything but pleasant.

"Tomoko?" Aislynn called out, not sure if there were anything left of the girl inside that body, or if Rassilon has stripped her out completely.

The girl reached up, a slight smile on her face, and she grabbed Aislynn's ankle. A silvery form, with segmented, jewel-like eyes and delicate antennae, crawled from under her sleeve and sank tiny pincers into Aislynn's flesh, and her body jerked as lightning ran along it.

She felt the controls snapping around her mind, as something invaded her thoughts and in her mind she began screaming, but her face remained serene.

/You will obey only me from this moment on,/ commanded Rassilon inside her head and Aislynn felt a sudden despair, as the highest ranking Time Lord around, took absolute control of her body.

* * *

Dar pulled himself up, shaking his head to clear it from the blast. He looked around and saw Aislynn hanging by her fingers above a yawning pit full of the Manifold and lunged to grab her.

"Aislynn! Come on!" he shouted and she reached up to him, locking her hand in his. She looked up at him, her face serene, but her eyes filled with a desperate pleading and he gasped.

/I can't. I'm so sorry!/ she told him, as she pushed off from the wall, throwing herself backwards into the hole and dragging Dar with her.

A wasp darted towards him and Dar shouted as it shot a bolt from its stinger, hitting him squarely in the temple.

He was already unconscious before they hit the ground.

* * *

"Nice," Tomoko said, feeling deeply satisfied with how well her plan went off. "Shall we, then?"

Aislynn stood up, obedient to Rassilon's commands, and waited silently next to Dar's prone figure, as a stasis bubble bloomed around them. Tomoko nodded and the Manifold finished chewing a hole in the corridor's roof that was open into space.

This was the tricky bit, she knew. She'd set a bunch of the beetles to cluster together and form a dome over the hole, before it had been opened up to space. The theory was that if they kept the air in that area, she could escape with her prisoners, without having to risk a messy decompression.

This is where it got interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Efficiency

The Doctor saw Dar tumble into the hole and then a swarm of bugs rushed upwards, like a silver wave, and exploded through the ceiling. With a terrible grinding shriek, they burst upwards and the Doctor had a moment of panic as he saw the ceiling vanish, expecting to be sucked out into space.

There was a moment where the wind started up and they were all being pulled towards the breach, but the sharp hiss of oxygen was cut off abruptly. There was another flood of silver rising rapidly upwards and he grabbed Jake and Diana, wrenching them backwards, as a silvery bubble shot upwards with Aislynn, Tomoko, and Dar inside of it.

They scurried backwards as the blaring alarms and slamming of doors indicated that the de-pressurization overrides were coming online. Doors up and down the corridor were slamming shut and he turned and began pushing Rose's bubble frantically, trying to get it out of the way of a hatch before they all shut down. Diana and Jake rushed to get Koschei's bubble to safety, as Taydin and the white haired secretary put their efforts into helping the Doctor push Rose.

Behind him, another bubble bloomed, plugging the hole behind where Tomoko had escaped with Dar and Aislynn. It kept the Doctor from following , but it also preserved the integrity of the seal that was keeping them all from a messy and painful death.

"How long will that thing last?" Diana asked, waving at the bubble, and the Doctor herded them all at a rapid pace.

"Not very long! We need to be behind the next door before then," he shouted back and they all leaned into the bubbles containing Rose and Koschei, rolling them as fast as they could. Rose was bouncing about a bit inside, but Koschei was trying to run at the same pace as they pushed, so that he could stay upright.

The alarm on the door began to sound, urging them to greater efforts and they scrambled to get through the opening mere seconds before it slammed shut behind them.

Above them, they could dimly hear the sounds of explosions, as a battle of some sort raged, but they were more occupied by getting Rose and Koschei out of harm's way.

"Bloody hell!" Jake shouted and then slid down the wall, looking shell-shocked.

"Aislynn!" Taydin gasped and then stood by the blast door, looking like he'd been turned to ice.

"The hell was that!" spat Diana.

A loud boom reverberated in the corridor and the whole hallway shook. Walls buckled and groaned and the Doctor was knocked off his feet, landing hard on the metal decking.

"What was that?" screamed the white haired secretary, helping him to rise..

"Sounded like a missile hitting the base," the Doctor shouted back over the the deafening noise. The floor was shaking and rocking, the metal and ceramacrete cracking, the air was filled with dust and the smell of ozone, and their eardrums were being battered by the explosions and wailing alerts. After a few seconds, however, the fire-fight seemed to be moving away from them, sounds growing more distant until the only thing left was the claxon's wail.

The stasis bubbles surrounding Koschei and Rose abruptly collapsed and the bugs that had been under their collars flew in fear for their lives, one flitting into an air vent, the other disappearing between two pieces of equipment.

Jake lunged after them, knowing it was futile, but trying to figure out how they had even gotten there and when.

The Doctor grabbed Rose to him and held her tightly and she clutched him just as hard, looking as though she was about to pass out.

"What happened?" Koschei asked, looking around wildly.

Adie's reaction was one of stunned shock.

"Aislynn just gave Dar to the Hive Queen," she said, "And then left with her." She looked and sounded as if someone had just hit her in the face with a heavy object.

"Dar!" Koschei cried out and reached telepathically for him. He strained for some touch, some contact. He could find a generalized sense that Darginian was still alive, but no more.

"He's not reachable," Koschei groaned.

"We'll get him back, we'll get them both back," Rose told him, her hand on his shoulder and he nodded.

"Bugs are back," Diana spat, as she got to her feet, glowering fiercely.

"I'd noticed," The Doctor sighed. "Hate those things."

"Taydin! You okay? Are you hurt?" Rose asked.

"She... Aislynn, what did he do to her?" Taydin asked, shaking his head and looking dazed.

"They're both Time Lords, right? Didn't they just have to command her to do something? Isn't that how those Nanites work? That's what Susan said," Diana replied in a grim tone.

"Yes, but...," he fell silent. "Yes, of course."

"We'll fix this," Koschei promised him. "We were only steps away from a cure. We can finish it up in no time. If you get me a workshop, I can finish it up."

"Of course," Taydin replied, but he didn't sound convinced.

The Doctor was holding Rose against him and breathing slowly, trying not to think about her nearly dying again.

"They could have killed us, but they didn't," Koschei pointed out and the Doctor nodded.

"Where did she get them from?" Rose asked and the Doctor shook his head in bewilderment.

"Survivors from the Loops?" he suggested and Koschei shrugged, looking equally baffled and then he frowned. "What?"

"I can't hear Guinn," he said. "I was going to ask him, but...damn, he must be eyes deep in the computer systems, so preoccupied that he closed himself up." Koschei sounded a bit amused and the Doctor smiled back.

"It has been known to happen with you two," the Doctor pointed out and Rose snorted a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah. How long do you think it will be before some officers come by and unseal all the doors again?" Koschei asked and the Doctor shrugged.

"Not until they are sure the place won't de-pressurize, no doubt."

"I don't suppose anyone brought cards?" Rose asked.

* * *

Tomoko looked around the bridge of the captured starship with a feeling of satisfaction.

"Right, now to lose any pursuit," she murmured.

She walked towards the oversized command chair, stopping for a moment to observe Freeya. The child had had her hands bound, and was bound into a chair that was so massive for her that her feet didn't touch the ground. She had been strapped in with safety webbing, and the buckles on the webbing had been spun over with the insect's silk. She was held far too firmly in place to be able to move.

"You're going to stay here, where I can keep an eye on you," Tomoko told Freeya, who was watching her like a mouse watches the cat. "I know how clever you are and I don't want you sabotaging anything."

Tomoko turned to her newcomers.

Aislynn was sitting in one of the chairs on the bridge, looking quite unperturbed as she was secured exactly like Freeya, but with a larger sized webbing. Her face was blank, while Dar's head lolled, semi-conscious, as he was placed in the chair next to Aislynn. He was also safety-webbed into place, but they took the precaution of using a double set of webbing, and extra cocooning around the latches.

Tomoko's attention was on the main monitor, but she pointed at Dar, without looking at him.

"He gets nothing made of metal, plastic, or ceramic! If it's not cloth, it's gone."

He was instantly swarmed with crickets, chewing up buttons, zippers, his wristwatch, everything they could find.

"As soon as you are done there," a youthful voice piped and Tomoko turned to face the Captain's chair. In it, looking absurdly young, was Justinian. He swept his gaze over the captives with sublime indifference. "Do we have it, or don't we?" he asked, his tones unsuited to the childish voice.

"The Black Archive? Of course we do." Tomoko smirked at him. "Now we get to see if we can keep it."

He jumped down off the Captain's chair, as the first volley of return fire came in.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to search through it now," he told her.

"In the middle of a fire-fight?" she queried and he turned to look at her in surprise.

"You are perfectly capable of fending off a few primitives," he pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "You have the Manifold and your own considerable intelligence. It should be simple enough." He nodded at her and then headed off the bridge briskly.

"Well, that's true," Tomoko admitted, pleased by his confidence in her abilities, as she sat down in the vacated Captain's Chair. "Let's see what we've got."

She pulled up the display showing the ships pursuing them and the screen lit up, displaying a large grouping of ships in hot pursuit. "Ooo, they're faster than we are," she mused, as she watched them draw closer six larger blips converging on her single one. "So, we're just going to have to be more clever than they are," she decided.

"How?" Freeya asked and Tomoko looked up at her.

"We are much more efficient and flexible than they are. Any organization has a doctrine of action and their doctrine is one of a Police Force. Police, by nature, prefer to arrest, rather than kill. We can use that to our advantage. Now, let's see how they approach us. We should be in comm range in three… two… one… Ah, here it comes."

The beep of an incoming message alert made Tomoko feel quite pleased. She was really quite good at being a spider. Her mind stuttered over the term and she frowned. Spider? Why had she thought that? She shook her head and focused on the incoming message.

"What does it say?" Freeya asked.

"Pull over that ship and submit to arrest, yada yada," she replied absently, her mind already racing ahead to the next step.

"What are you going to say to them?" Freeya questioned and Tomoko shrugged.

"Doesn't really matter, I can only delay them so long before they start shooting at me. Once they have cautioned me and I haven't complied, which I'm not going to do, they sort of have to start the shooting part."

"That doesn't sound good," Freeya replied with a nervous look at the screen.

The first set of blueprints popped up on her screen and she bent over to study it more closely.

"Hmm. The closest one behind us is the 'Intrepid'. It's a class 7, with a crew complement of twenty cops." She studied the specs for a minute.

Alarms began to sound as the ships fired their first shots. They were warning shots, as she'd suspected that they would be, and she ignored them in favour of the blueprints.

She turned to eye the Manifold gathered on the bridge. They were mostly crickets, wasps, and beetles of various sizes and she contemplated the best way to use each one. She waved a group of the locusts forwards to perch on the screen while she described their tasks to them

"You four; your job is to fly outside, use the plasma wake to surf over to the other ship, attach yourselves to the hull, and puncture it here, here, here, and here. One hole, one centimetre in diameter, only in each location. You drill down until you are two centimetres from the inner hull, then wait sixty seconds, and then finish drilling the rest of the way through. Got it?" she asked them and they chirped happily, before zipping off. She then turned to address the remaining insects.

"I want the rest of you to split up into two groups, First group will chew through this strut and the second group through that one, but watch your timing. The puncture holes come first, de-pressurization hits, sixty seconds after the fourth de-pressurization, those struts come off. When the starboard engine separates, you come back here, Got it? Off you go."

"They're calling you again," Freeya pointed out with a somewhat higher pitched voice than before.

"Of course they are," Tomoko murmured, still thinking through her strategy.

Alarms began to shrill and Freeya paled in her chair.

"What was that?" she cried.

"That was them moving into the shooting part of the chase. They are firing at us for real now," she mused, chewing on her thumb as she thought.

"What are you going to do?" Freeya asked, sounding rather frantic now and Tomoko waved her away without much concern.

"The Courage, class 9 police cruiser, crew complement thirty-five." Just like before, she studied the blueprint as it rotated before her. "Wasps, front and centre. Your target is this bubble-dome here. Punch through it, one centimetre circumference hole, mind the two-centimetres before opening up the inner hull rule, de-pressurization will hit, wait sixty seconds before entering; the crew will be cleared out of the room at that point."

"Is that their navigational system?" Freeya gasped and Tomoko beamed proudly at her.

"Yes, it is!" she relied. "Very good! It's not just Navigation though, it's also most of their sensors and a few of their weapons controls." She turned back to the wasps. "First target upon entering is the door: it has to be welded shut within the first thirty seconds, they'll try to re-enter with suits. Do. Not. Let. Those. Doors. Open. Once you have the room secure, pull the dome off of the ship completely and throw it into space. Then come back." The wasps took off, buzzing furiously down the hallway.

A volley of fire rocked the deck, causing an explosion in one of the hallways. Tomoko staggered, then looked at the ants milling about.

"Repairs, go, keep us in one piece!" They moved away at top speed and she went back to the plans. "Persistence, class four?"

"They're going pretty fast for a class 4," Freeya mused.

"Agreed, I mean, how the bloody hell are they even… oh, they have an engineer aboard, don't they?" she grimaced and Freeya looked interested.

"Think she's been modifying it?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, She's been engaging in, shall we call them, questionable repairs, I'd say," she agreed and then whistled as the Persistence poured on some extra speed. "They're all souped up to glory."

"What do all the red circles mean?" Freeya asked, craning her neck to see.

"Weapons embankments," Tomoko hissed. "Wow, those could be problematic…" She gestured to the beetles. "Split up. You lot chew seven meter long, one meter wide, grooves along the external skin of these thrusters, only the ones on the port side, clear? Only after the wasps and locusts have taken out the other two ships. All of you are going to notch these barrels; you'll likely get fired at, but I doubt they're capable of hurting you. Come back when you're done."

Freeya gave Tomoko an appraising look.

"You're trying to avoid casualties," she pointed out.

Tomoko was deeply offended by the thought. As though she would put any consideration ahead of Rassilon's well-being and the pursuit of his goals.

"I don't care about casualties! They are obstacles and must be removed, but the Manifold are very precise, and we're going to run the precision machines, like they are precision machines."

"Uh-huh." Freeya didn't look like she believed her. She also look much less frightened than she had before.

"Watch and learn," Tomoko said. "This is a much more efficient method."

* * *

Aboard the Intrepid, the officers of the Federated Planets' police force, the Shadow Proclamation, were fiercely determined to arrest the people who had attacked Shadow Base. Good people had died in the attack and they wanted to make certain that nothing like that ever happened again. This sort of audacity needed to be nipped in the bud.

"Shields?" barked Captain Selesten, a tall Alpha Centauran, with verdant green colouring and a large single eye in the centre of her bulbous head.

"The Valour's shields are down to thirty percent, Captain." Lieutenant Dedrek replied crisply.

"Has the Valour returned fire?" she asked next, frowning at her plot.

"No, Captain. She's just running away from us at top speed."

"How odd. Fire another volley, see if you can get them to surrender," she ordered and he nodded.

"Yes, Captain."

Her finger had no sooner moved towards the illuminated panel, when several lights on her console flashed red. She frowned at the readouts in confusion.

"We… can't fire missile bank one, Captain," she reported, even as she was querying the computer.

"What? Why not?"

"There's no atmosphere in missile one…," she explained even as the intercom bleeped.

"Bridge," the Captain replied as she took the call.

"Captain Selesten!" It was Lieutenant Ioan, one of the engineers. He sounded breathless and frazzled. "We've lost missile one! It just… de-pressurized! We had to evacuate!"

"Casualties?" Selesten gasped out.

"None, we were damned lucky to make the blast doors before they closed…"

Ioan was interrupted by Dedrek.

"Sir, we've just lost missiles two and three, identical circumstances."

"Ioan!" The captain snapped. "Suit up and find out what the hell…"

"Missile command four down, sir." Dedrek bit her lip nervously. " We have no way to fire missiles."

"...is going on…"

The words had no sooner left her mouth than alarms started blaring.

"Lieutenant! What is…"

There was a clunk noise, followed by the groan of overstressed metal.

"Starboard engine, red alert!"

"Strap yourselves in!"

Selesten barely made her command chair, before there was a horrible, grinding, ripping sound and the entire ship began to spin out of control. She was clinging to the arms of the chair, feeling very glad that none of her three stomachs had anything in them just them. A blur crossing the screen might have been her starboard engine, shooting like a rocket away from them, before it blew with a force of a thousand old fashioned nuclear bombs, but she was too busy hoping it would end soon to really care over much.

It was her last conscious thought, before she passed out.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - Body Control

Jake, Diana, Koschei, and Taydin were sitting on the floor of the corridor. Taydin had had a deck of Gallifreyan playing cards in his jacket and was teaching Jake and Diana to play a game that seemed a bit like Poker, but with rules that involved things like "Except if you're in a room with a temporal shift of .003 or above". Though, the two Time Lords were graciously waving all the Time Lord specific rules. Taydin was obviously trying to cover his deep concern for Aislynn with polite conversation, so Diana just went with it.

There was something that was bothering her, though, and she frowned as she rearranged the cards in her hand, trying to remember which made pairs.

"Did we bring the Manifold with us, or were they already on the station?" Diana asked suddenly and the Doctor peered at her in interest.

"Quite an interesting question," he asked her.

"Is that you not having an answer and trying to sound clever?" Rose asked him with a grin and he chuckled.

"A bit," he admitted.

"Well it's important," said Diana. "If they're not from the original batch, they're not infected, and we're right back to the multiplication problem."

"We don't know anything yet, Diana, and it's always a mistake to theorize without data," the Doctor pointed out.

"First, we need to get Aislynn and Dar back," Taydin interjected.

"Yes, then we need to figure out how much of Tomoko is left inside of her," Koschei sighed out, looking deeply unhappy.

"No, first, we need to get out of this corridor and to talk to the Shadow Architect," the Doctor corrected. "There is a lot we don't yet know here." Beside him, the plump little secretary nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Tell me something I don't know," Diana muttered.

"Now, shall we continue the game?" Taydin laid a card down and Jake gave him a look that Diana couldn't read.

"What did she want Dar for? Or did Rassilon want him? And what did Rassilon want him for?" Diana asked.

"Agent Darginian is a knowledgeable man, a man whose abilities would be useful to both sides of this altercation," Taydin told her and his face was rather grim as he said it.

"I really don't like to think of what Rassilon needs him for," Koschei added, looking equally glum.

* * *

On the Valour, Tomoko nodded as the starboard engine suddenly detached itself from the Intrepid. The engine went one way and exploded spectacularly; the ship went the other, spinning in crazy circles.

"Now, see," Tomoko said to Freeya, who was watching intently. "The other engine has an automatic cut-off, watch… there it goes…" The port engine suddenly turned itself off. Emergency thrusters came on, slowing the spin, as the emergency repair and autopilot systems of the ship tried to bring it back under control.

"Are they okay?" Freeya enquired anxiously.

"They're fine, though there's probably not a single being still conscious on that ship," she replied. "Watch though, the autopilot will get the spin under control. They'll be mighty disoriented for a while, but they'll be okay. They'll also be stranded, which means that the Shadow Proclamation will have to… whoop! See? There they go!"

Two ships had just peeled off from their pursuers, chasing after the still-wildly-spinning Intrepid.

"If we had destroyed the Intrepid, we would have only gotten one ship to stop shooting at us. This way we get three. It's more efficient."

"What about that one?" Asked Freeya.

Tomoko turned just in time to see the entire dome peel right off of the Courage. It still seemed to be going strong, even as the dome exploded some distance away.

"Ah, the Courage. It seems fine now, but let's make an evasive manoeuvre…" Her fingers tapped out on the controls, and the ship made a turn just as more missiles impacted. The force of these knocked Tomoko right off her feet, and she landed hard on her butt.

"Whoof! That, Freeya, is why you are strapped in." She staggered back over to the Captain's chair and fastened her seat belt.

Although the chase had now turned by ninety degrees, the Courage had not, and shot off in the exact same direction that it had been going. Moments later, three more of their pursuers had turned to follow it.

"See? Down another four, and we'll be long gone, by the time they get themselves sorted out."

"But we're in range of that other ship now!" Freeya squeaked, looking frightened.

"The Persistence? They have really big guns, but in order to fire them, those barrels have to be…"

One of the long gun barrels abruptly burst in a violent explosion.

"...sealed and pressurized," finished Tomoko. "Same thing with the thrusters," she added, as the Persistence abruptly started spinning in circles too. "See how we spun it in the opposite direction of the Intrepid? When you are trying to take out two ships, you don't want to risk the ships hitting each other. One, it makes everyone mad, and two, if it is clear that you have a no-survivor situation, nobody stops. They just chase you harder." She looked at the screen. "None of those other ships have a prayer of catching us… yes, there they go. They're going to go off and help."

"So, by disabling the two ships, you got all of them to go away, without having to hurt anyone," Freeya mused and Tomoko smiled at her.

The bridge door slid open and a silver tide flowed through, as the Manifold who'd left on their missions returned.

"Good job guys!" Tomoko praised them. The various types all showed their pleasure in her praise in their own way, some of them clicked contentedly, while others cleaned wings or antennae in a cheerful manner. "Damage report… ooo, ouchie, ouchie, ouchie! Repairs, guys, here, here, here, be quick before we start breaking up, hm?"

* * *

With the blast doors finally opened, Diana, Jake, and Taydin looked up from their card game as a group of SP officers, in their gray uniforms, came towards them.

"Captain Simmonds," the officer in front said, a ruddy-faced human male, with a slight paunch and thinning brown hair, and Jake rose and extended a hand to him.

"Commander Stout," he replied. "Did we lose anyone?"

"Four got sucked out when the area decompressed and a small passenger ship panicked and crashed, killing three, other than that, no. Surprisingly light really, for an attack like this. I mean, they did a huge amount of structural damage, but there weren't a lot of fatalities."

"Sounds like they're trying to avoid casualties," Diana muttered thoughtfully to herself.

"Funny you should mention that," Commander Stout looked at Jake. "There was a fire alarm that went off, just before this happened."

"A fire alarm?" His brows furrowed.

"Yep. We have no idea why the buzzer sounded when it did. Everyone got up, went along their typical evacuation routes. Some routes worked; on others, the doors malfunctioned at several points, wouldn't open. As a result of that…" he gestured around, "This entire area was almost completely abandoned when it was hit. Our four interior casualties ignored the buzzer."

"How very interesting," the Doctor murmured, his eyes unfocused as he thought.

There was a stunned silence, as everyone in the room watched the Persistence spiral away on the Shadow Architect's monitor.

There was an agonizing thirty seconds as the furious officers of the Shadow Proclamation tried to swallow what it meant. Then they turned, chasing after the third downed battle cruiser in a row. The Valour shot off the edge of the image, free as a bird, without a hint of further pursuit.

The Shadow Architect sat down heavily in her chair.

"I can't believe it," she mumbled. "Three police cruisers down in…" She looked at her secretary.

"seven point two minutes, Madame Architect," the Doctor supplied the information with a wholly inappropriate glee. "Patrol cruisers are no match for a quick wit and some very peculiar technology."

"Send the footage for analysis," the Architect said.

"I can give you an analysis right now," the Doctor offered.

"How was Rassilon doing that?" gasped Adie. "I never knew him to have telekinetic powers, did you?"

"Oh please!" the Doctor snapped. "That wasn't telekinesis."

"No, but it was quite precise," Koschei muttered.

"The maths for that took a bit of genius," Rose agreed.

"I don't like the way the struts sheared off like that, there was no mechanical reason… do we have greater magnification than this?" Koschei scowled at the screen.

"I am afraid not," the Secretary said. "We can check to see if any of the ships recorded better footage than the emergency cameras, though."

"Yes, please do," Koschei requested, tapping his teeth lightly with his stylus.

"You're all missing it? How can you all be missing it?" the Doctor asked, looking around the table.

"Missing what?" Jake asked.

"The Manifold! We've seen them in action before, you know. She has to have sent them after those ships!" he explained and Koschei smacked his head with his hand and nodded.

"I's so thick! How is that I didn't see it?" he groaned.

"How many casualties?" Rose interrupted.

"I can't believe I am going to say this, but none reported to date," the secretary said, and the Shadow Architect looked at her, obviously stunned as well as relieved.

"So, he let her have her head? That wasn't very clever of him," the Doctor muttered and Koschei nodded.

"You mean Tomoko?" Diana asked and they both nodded at her. "I thought that was much more her style," she agreed.

"What?" Adie asked, looking between the three of them in confusion.

"That bombing at Pete's, that was exactly the sort of 'leave no witnesses, clean up after yourself' overdone tactics that one can expect from Rassilon," the Doctor explained and Diana nodded.

"But the ships?" she told Adie. "That was Tomoko."

"Uh-huh." Jake continued working for a few seconds, then blinked. "Wait… what?"

"It was Rassilon that bombed Pete's house. It was Tomoko that stole the Valour," Koschei explained and Jake and Adie both blinked in surprise, but Rose leaned back in her chair, looking thoughtful.

"Yeah, I can see that," she agreed.

"What makes you say that?" Jake asked and Adie looked at him and nodded.

"The hit on the house was not Tomoko's style. Bombing a house full of kids? No way!" Diana insisted.

"And the Valour theft?" Jake prompted.

"Was completely different," the Doctor pointed out. "Minimal casualties, deliberately so, and very efficient."

"Exactly!" Diana agreed. "She'd never just kill people for no reason."

Jake stared at them.

"So, what does that mean, that Rassilon has gotten out of her head?" he asked and the Doctor looked at Koschei.

"Nothing that simple. If he's released his hold on her, enough for her to plan her own operations, then he's controlling her in some other way, forcing her to comply with him, either through mental domination, or brainwashing," Koschei sighed out. "She's still being used by him."

"She probably dropped the life pods with the crew back when she took the Valour," Diana added.

"How can you be sure of that?" Jake asked.

"Because we did the pod thing when we used a ship called the Micron to take out a small fleet. We did that while we were in the Loops," she explained. "When we rescued Evie."

Jake nodded thoughtfully, running a hand over his short cropped blond hair, as he ran the scenario through his mind.

"Like when we did the raid on Skye's Loop, I remember you saying that Tomoko had declared a no-casualty rule," Jake agreed.

"A rule that I completely agree with, by the way," the Doctor chimed in. "My favourite rule, in fact."

"Oh, I had forgotten that, that's right. I don't think Tomoko had time for a no-casualties rule here, this was probably set up in a hurry, so I think it's probably more like a 'light casualties' rule. But it does mean that Tomoko is in the driver's seat, well kind of, and she wasn't at Pete's house."

"Which is bad in its own way," Rose sighed out.

"Oh?" Adie asked, looking perplexed.

"If he's not driving Tomoko's body right now, whose is he using?" she asked them and all of their minds turned instantly to the hostage children he had taken. Koschei's face drained of colour and he looked dreadful.

"Omega," he murmured.

"What are we going to do about Aislynn?" Taydin had been silent up til then, merely listening without comment to all of this and so his voice breaking in was rather startling.

"Get her back, of course," the Doctor replied and the other nodded.

"This is my fault, after all," Koschei sighed. "I need to fix it."

"How is it your fault?" Taydin snorted. "Did you tell the Daleks to Infect her?"

"No, but I didn't stop it either," he admitted and Taydin looked at him in confusion.

"What? How could you have prevented it?"

"During the War," Koschei replied, as if having to recite words dipped in poison, "I heard that it was decided to sacrifice one of the Singers to the Daleks. A war manoeuvre. At the time the Singer was under the command of a Lieutenant named Zhago. He was assigned to run a mission on the front lines, with the Singer, than have his troops withdraw and leave the Singer for the Daleks. It worked, for whatever that was worth, cost the Daleks millions, won us back a few planets." He closed his eyes. "I could have protested more strongly, but I never did,"

Taydin stared frozen, looking like he'd been shot.

"It was deliberate?" he choked out, looking utterly betrayed.

"I didn't like the plan, but got told to 'mind my own business'," Koschei ground out. "Not because I felt bad for her, I was still not sane back then, but because I thought it "an egregious waste of resources"," he told them, his words like a bitter acid dripping from his tongue. "Singers were so damn rare and we were losing them far too quickly."

"She survived though, got back to Gallifrey, and you made the Nanites that cured the Dalek infection," Adie pointed out.

"Replacing her enforced loyalty to the Daleks, with enforced obedience to any Time Lord who felt like telling her to jump on one foot for an hour," Koschei reminded her.

"Which is how Rassilon was able to gain complete control of Aislynn," the Doctor sighed out. "There was no way for her to fight that sort of control."

"So, how do we get her back?" Diana demanded, face furious from hearing what had been done to Aislynn.

"Carefully," the Doctor sighed out. "The conflict between personal will and the overriding controls can shred a mind apart, if we aren't very careful."

Diana looked very sad.

"The last time I visited her, she told me that there was no place in the world any more for Singers, that they were just another kind of weapon. That making music because of the love of music was a craft for others."

"She was wrong," Taydin told her, his voice firm. "We are hammers, certainly, but we can build just as well as we can destroy. A weapon, however, can only destroy."

Diana nodded thoughtfully at that and they all got back to planning again.

* * *

Susan watched Allan being wheeled into surgery and ran through the procedure once more with Professor Boma and the Chief Surgeon. She had done it a thousand times before on the Dalek-ravaged future Earth that had vanished from the timeline, but it had been a while and she hoped that her old facility with a laser scalpel would come back to her.

This was his last chance and she felt the weight of that rather keenly.

"I understand," Professor Boma told her and stepped over to monitor vitals and take care of putting him under.

She pulled out the tools would need and ran a last scan over the tumour before Professor Boma helped her set up a sterilization field.

"I'll walk you through everything, show you what I'm doing," she informed the human surgeon, a slender, tidy looking man, with fine delicate hands, and very expensive aftershave.

"Thank you," he replied, watching her in avid interest.

"Then, if we're all ready? Let's begin," she told them and they went to work.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Second Thoughts

On board the Valour, Tomoko was turning slowly about and looking at the Manifold insects carefully, as if she were talking to them. Freeya shivered watching her. Some moments Tomoko would seem almost nice and then she'd say or do something scary and Freeya would remember that she was Rassilon's puppet.

"Listen, you lot; scour this ship, every inch, stem to stern. Make absolutely certain that the Shadow Proclamation did not manage to land a homing beacon or something," Tomoko ordered the insects and they they fanned out, off to obey her.

Freeya watched them warily as they crawled over every inch of the bridge and then cleared out to search the rest of the ship. She had one eye on the plotter, trying to figure out where they where, even though she was rather weak in astrogation. She had to remember to study it harder when she got home. She refused to think about the possibility that she might not make it home at all.

"Why aren't we dropping out of hyper?" Freeya asked finally, peering at the screens.

"Here's the damage report, see for yourself." Tomoko grumbled, as she pulled it up on screen.

"Yuck," Freeya winced and then frowned. "Better get the mag bottle stabilized, or we're all going to go blooey."

Tomoko turned to the report and frowned at it herself.

"You heard the lady! Off you go!" she instructed the Manifold. A large batch of beetles flew down another hallway before she turned back to Freeya.

"By the way, have you been introduced to these?" Tomoko asked, as she strolled over to Freeya's chair. In her hand was a small, silvery cricket, with golden jewelled eyes, which she held close, so that Freeya could see it.

"It's a... cricket?" she asked, studying the insect with interest.

"This is a weapon left over from the Time War. They are the most amazing, astounding, magnificent creatures you will ever see," Tomoko told her proudly.

"It doesn't look like a weapon," Freeya mused. "It looks like one of the bugs that Wilf teaches us about. "Every insect has a place in the chain of life, a purpose that directs its actions and evolution"," she recited. "What is this one's purpose?"

"It's original purpose was to chew through things," Tomoko said.

"No, that can't be right," Freeya disagreed. "It would have a purpose related to the survival of its species, gathering pollen, or eating grains, or something. They all do stuff, they don't just chew for no reason."

Tomoko was beaming at Freeya, as if she was an exceptionally prized student.

"I am told that a Time Lord named the Rani created them, and I am also told that she was completely mad. She made them, but put no limits on them."

"Yeah. Adults can be really dumb sometimes," Freeya agreed with a nod.

"Would you like to know the Rani's big mistake?"

"Making something really smart and not giving it a real job to do?" Freeya asked, cocking her head at the cricket in interest.

"Well, partially. The Rani wanted to make certain that the Manifold could never eat her. So when she made them, she made them in a caste system, and then made herself Hive Queen. That way she could never be threatened by her own creations."

"What happens when she dies, though? Who do they listen to then?" Freeya asked, with a frown. "They must be so lonely."

"Oh, they were! How did you know that?"

"How did I know?" Freeya looked up at Tomoko with eyes that had seen too much for her age. "Because I would have done anything it took to get back to my Mummy. I bet they would too."

"So they did. They chewed their way out of their Loop, even though it took them a thousand years, even though we were waiting on the other side and slaughtered them by the countless billions."

"Well, I suppose that if they had no limits, they might have been dangerous," Freeya mused, but she looked doubtful.

"They were dangerous," Tomoko said, "Because there were so many, and because they were so big; but also because we didn't understand them. They would mind their own business and then randomly fly into rages, and we didn't know why. Now we do know why."

"Cause they needed their Mummy," Freeya replied wistfully and Tomoko nodded sadly.

"But now they've found a Queen. Rassilon takes up that spot in the caste system," she told Freeya, looking very pleased by that.

"Rassilon isn't very nice though. My Mummy was nice. I wouldn't want Rassilon to be my Mummy," Freeya replied with a shake of her head. "Can't we get them a better Mummy?"

Tomoko looked like she'd been hit, her head jerked violently and she abruptly stood up.

"You're just a child. You don't understand. Rassilon is a genius and a very great man," she scolded. "You: make sure she doesn't undo that collar," she said to the Cricket, and it hopped down and settled on the gleaming circle of metal. "He'll need my assistance with the Archives, I'll be back soon." She headed down the hallway leaving Freeya on the bridge.

Behind her, Freeya shivered and sniffled a bit, letting her genuine fear show for a moment, before she took a deep breath and let it out again.

"Koschei is coming, I know he is, Guinn too, they'll come, I know that they will." She told herself this over and over again, watching the cricket with eyes that remained dry through sheer force of will.

The cricket seemed to sense she was upset and rubbed its tiny head against her cheek, cheeping hopefully in her ear, trying to comfort her.

* * *

The Doctor frowned at the scanner readings.

"Bio-metals," Koschei grumbled. "You were right." The Doctor nodded slowly.

"Yes, but they didn't eat everything, just those precise points," he reminded his friend.

"Why though?"

"Maybe because... well, because Tomoko told them to?" the Doctor suggested, though he sounded as though he hardly believed it himself.

"You're not suggesting...?" Koschei sputtered and the Doctor grimaced.

"It's Tomoko, is there anything that could surprise you there?" he asked and Koschei laughed.

"No. Not a thing," he agreed and then the two of them left the scanner room to rejoin the others, with a great deal to think through.

* * *

"This isn't working," Rassilon told her in cool, calculating tones. "We've obviously missed something vital." Tomoko was disturbed a bit by the icy tones coming from what looked like a ten year old boy. The memory of the child screaming and sobbing, begging her to let him go, reverberated in her mind in an odd manner. One one level, she knew that it was right and proper that the boy had died, because Rassilon's survival was the most important thing, but, on another level, it bothered her and she couldn't quite understand why.

"There is another layer of security here," Rassilon continued and her focus was instantly back on his words, his plan, and all the things that they had to do.

"Yes, but I'm not sure what," Tomoko crawled out of the vent, frowning.

"It ought to be working… I don't know what is wrong with it. " Again, she found that part of her felt terrible for failing him in this, while another part was mentally blowing him a raspberry.

"Some security override or hidden fail-safe," he replied and leaned back in his chair, staring off into space as he thought. She knelt at his feet, thinking hard, but the second set of thoughts kept inserting ideas that she wasn't quite sure about.

"Not on the software level, it's hardware related, I think. What we need is a good mechanical engineer. I mean, I'm good, but… a second opinion might be useful," she suggested and she wasn't at all sure which part of her mind had come up with that.

"Luckily, I think I know where to find one," Rassilon turned and the coldness, the calculation in his eyes, made his child's face terrifying to behold. She was startled by the thought, as she knew that Rassilon was good and and right and that following him was the only way to save everyone.

"I take it you would like me to fetch one for you?" she asked, feeling a sudden giddy joy that she could do something for him. She wanted so much to please him and she felt as though she wasn't doing everything that she could here.

"If you would be so kind, Tomoko," he told her with a gracious gesture. "The Command Centre please, the Master should be there right now." There was a moment when the suave outer shell faltered and Rassilon's face twisted into a look of fury, but it was quickly gone again. "Bring him here, please."

"Of course," she replied and then frowned as a sudden worry overcame her. "You'll be safe here with all the prisoners? You want me to sedate them until I get back?"

"Not to worry, the situation is under control," he responded and rose from the chair, the gawky ten year old's body moving with too much authority to look natural.

"Very well," she agreed easily. He knew what he was doing after all. She was so pleased by this that she didn't notice the lack of a second thought there resisting it. She took the TARDIS key from her pocket and flipped it, catching it again, then headed down the corridor.

"Tomoko, do try to hurry, will you?" he told her with a calmly dispassionate tone that nonetheless managed to hint at a wrath that lay beneath it all that it would be well not to rouse.

"As you say," she agreed and somewhere in her head another part of her made a face of disgust at her tone.

"Excellent," he replied and she found that his approval made her preen in pleasure. That other part of her was making gagging noises somewhere, but she ignored that. She was doing Rassilon's bidding and everything was perfect.

Smiling, she went to her TARDIS, while her second thoughts planned and plotted in the back of her head.

* * *

Guinn was bent over the console, studying the screens, the soft gentle warmth of his bond with Susan and Koschei the only thing that was keeping him from a furious assault on the intransigent machines.

"Damn his eyes," he grumbled, not hearing the sound of a TARDIS docking, nor really listening for anyone else to be here. After all, he knew he was alone.

* * *

Tomoko opened the door of the TARDIS, looked around, then closed it again and turned to the console. Inside of the TARDIS her thoughts were clearer than they had been on the Valour. It was as if the TARDIS was trying to shield her somehow, but she didn't know enough about the corals to be sure if that was true. Even so, it was very hard for her to think about anything that might make Rassilon unhappy or upset. So, instead, she focused on the mission, thinking about the best ways to utilize the Manifold.

Every surface in the room was coated in fireflies, from some barely the size of her fingernail, to others that were bigger than basketballs. Their little antennae quivered and she could almost feel the wave of attention and affection that they radiated at her. They had a low level telepathy that she could feel a great deal more strongly, now that she was a Time Lord.

"You all know what to do," she told them, and received a lot of affirmative clicking in response. "Still, we are going over it again anyway. Your job is to keep Guinn from sending psychic information, especially to Koschei and Susan. I doubt we'll be able to do it completely, it is some special sort of link, but we have got to do the best we can. If Susan gets one hint that Guinn is alarmed or in trouble, we'll all be Arkytior-chow. He must not call for help! You all know your positioning?" There were more agreeing clicks. "Off with you, then."

She opened the door, and all the fireflies flew away. She worked for several minutes at the console, sending the central column up and down, even though they weren't moving. When she left the console, and lounged in the doorway, looking unnecessarily at her watch, mostly because she was nervous, the column was still going.

She was still getting used to being a Time Lord. The way she could see things that used to just be ideas or mathematical theories to her before was exciting, but she felt like she had barely had any time to enjoy it before... something, she couldn't quite remember had happened to ruin her fun. She turned slowly, looking at the curving lines of time and the way that the TARDIS bent and folded it, before she recalled herself and began to make her way to Command and Control.

She took the time not to trip any cameras or alarms on her way in; her previous visit made that not only possible, but easy. Even so, she took a nervous breath before entering the room. After all, she was risking some serious consequences if this all went wrong.

"Here goes nothing," she said to herself and stepped inside the room.

Guinn was crawling under the computer console as she came in and above him, where he couldn't see them, the crickets perched, awaiting her signal. They were anticipatory and in a somewhat playful mood, which made her smile a bit.

She paused, studied the situation and waited. She could tell, from the position of his feet, the exact moment when he picked up the cotton-headed feeling of the psychic dampening. It was only after she felt it herself, and was certain that the shielding was as good as she could possibly make it, that she spoke.

"I might have known I would come in to see your feet." Her eyes flicked to the firefly perched in the window, but it remained dark. A promising start.

"Hello Tomoko," he replied wearily, pulling himself from under the computer to turn and look at her. "You are Tomoko, aren't you? I ask because Rassilon usually starts by monologuing and you haven't... yet."

Tomoko rolled her eyes.

"Oh my god, tell me about it," she retorted, despite how guilty it made her feel to say anything against Rassilon.

"I could, but why bore us both senseless," he replied, with a grimace. "If you intended to kill me, I'd already be dead, therefore, he must need me for something."

"So far, so good." She waved her hand, showing him the small box in her palm. "By the way, I know this is really cliché, but I have a button, and I'd like for you not to call for help from Susan and Koschei… I don't care to have to deal with the Arkytior. Can we do that, or do I really need to do the whole routine?"

"I would rather not risk Susan's life by having her deal with the Arkytior, so we are in agreement," he told her and rose slowly to his feet, keeping his hands open and visible.

"Stay just like that, would you?" she suggested and the other part of her brain started whispering to her again. She frowned and tried to decided which way she ought to go.

"Very well, Tomoko," he agreed. His eyes on her were merely weary, rather than angry.

She turned to look at the Manifold, feeling the warm hum of them inside her mind.

"You know the routine, nothing but cloth," she told them and a cricket came to sit on her shoulder, rubbing its tiny head against her cheek. She stroked it absently as Guinn was swarmed with the Manifold, crickets checking every inch of his body, chewing up anything made of metal, glass, or any substance other than cloth.

He stood rigidly through it all, looking as though he was barely holding himself in check. Sweat beaded his brow as he fought to keep still and she recalled hearing that he'd nearly been killed by them on the ice planet. His near death experience with the Manifold apparently wasn't making him comfortable with them being that close to his body.

Still, she thought to herself, he didn't have to bear it for long. It took them less than two minutes to strip him of everything that could possibly be useful, and then they flitted away again.

"Sorry about that," Tomoko said, "but it's necessary. They really are very effective. Shall we?"

He took a deep breath and nodded, his hand rubbing absently at his shoulder.

"As you say," he replied.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Playing for Time

So," Tomoko said, as she escorted Guinn down the hallway, "I hear you are supposed to be one of the greatest telepaths that your .. our race ever produced. Is that true?"

"So I've been told. History books are sketchy on that, mind you. Also, 'most skilled' might be better, since, honestly, Rassilon has more sheer power than I do," Guinn replied, his voice calm again.

"Noted. I'm taking you back to him," she said, but then frowned as the second thoughts suggested something. "Huh, we've a stop to make first." They had reached the TARDIS doors and she gestured him inside.

"A picnic lunch on Tarepedas, perchance?" he asked, as he walked inside.

"Ooo, sounds nice." She paused, thoughtfully as the idea of a picnic momentarily derailed her second thoughts. She wrenched her mind back to Rassilon and set the TARDIS in flight. The Manifold had followed her in and were now flying around the room, settling on surfaces, or snuggling into her hair and clothes.

"You should take Susan there," Tomoko suggested, dredging up a memory from somewhere of his wife.

"I very much doubt that I will live that long, Tomoko," Guinn told her with a regretful tone. "Rassilon has never been gentle with his toys."

"That," Tomoko said, "Is why we're going to find out just how good I really am." She wasn't at all sure quite what she meant by that, but she did know that her second thoughts were churning up a storm somewhere and she was feeling uneasy about that, but also couldn't quite bring herself to fight it much harder.

"How good you are?" Guinn chuckled. "The best thing I ever made, that's what you are, Tomoko."

She turned to stare at him, shocked by his words, both parts of her mind focused on the feeling of joy they generated.

"You really think so?"

"I really do," he replied, looking at her with a gentleness and affection that both surprised and warmed her. "My daughters are brilliant and I suppose a father ought not to have a favourite, but you are just a bit more brilliant than the rest. Just don't tell them I said that." He put a finger to his lips.

She laughed and that surprised both of them. She hadn't laughed in ... her memories didn't go that far back, she realized.

"Flattery will get you everywhere." She adjusted their course a bit, as one of the larger fireflies jumped on the console, chittering hopefully. She stroked it absent-mindedly, her thoughts on his words and the tasks ahead. "You may remember this place," she told him, as she gestured him forwards. "You took me here the last time we visited the Command Centre. I hacked it, of course. I thought I might need to get back here one day."

She opened the doors to reveal the foyer of the Bolt hole. Guinn paused and looked out at the marble and gilt architecture and looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"Yes, very nice piloting. Do you need me to take down the security?" he asked. "Or did you hack that too the last time you were here?"

"I tried, but why don't you double-check it… mind you, I am not letting you out of my sight."

He winced.

"Try not to listen to the questions, or the answers, please, it's... personal," he replied.

"I bypassed the questions," Tomoko told him and Guinn breathed out in obvious relief. "That's what I hacked. But that is all I had time for. Presumably, any non-question defences that were up… are still up."

* * *

"Very well," he replied trying to hide how very relieved he was. There was still a great deal that he would find both painful and embarrassing for her to see, but at least he was spared that. If he was very lucky, the bedroom would not be part of any tours, for instance.

He stepped out of the TARDIS and Tomoko followed about five feet behind him.

"Do you have a lab or workshop here, or will we need to set up in the secret room that housed the Time Lords?

"I always have a workshop," he told her absently, as he took down the security. "Tomoko, I assume that you have a plan, you always do, but are you sure you can bypass his controls on you?"

"He's not controlling me. I serve him willingly," she told him with a roll of her eyes and he winced at her earnest belief. "I'm just worried that there are things that could hurt him and I have to do what I think will serve him best. We need your tools from here, so that you can serve him best. This is your workshop? Yes, this will do."

They walked into a space that was nowhere near as large as his workshop on the station, or even the one on Susan's TARDIS, it was an intimate space, with a few makers along the wall, a lathe, and a number of tools that were specific to specialized tasks. The workshop was geared towards weapons and robotics, which he rather hoped that she wouldn't notice.

Tomoko was obviously aware underneath the outer controls, but not quite enough to completely overcome them. He had a few ideas on how to support her, but he wasn't sure what her reaction would be yet. He had to feel his way cautiously here.

"Password please," a ghostly figure of a slender, brown-haired woman appeared in the middle of the room." He looked at her and smiled, even the ghost of Susan being enough to ease his hearts.

"Susannatrevelararkytior," he replied and Tomoko looked at him, surprised.

"I didn't realize you had two of these."

"I don't have two, this is Susan, the same one from the base. I installed her here so I could visit her without disturbing the other Susan," he said softly and the figure, in her translucent white robes nodded.

"We wouldn't want her to feel as though she wasn't appreciated," Susan agreed and then glanced at Tomoko. "What project are we working on today?"

"Just getting tools, actually," she frowned.

"It's okay, she's not a threat," Guinn assured Tomoko.

"Do you want to bring her with us?" Tomoko asked and suddenly his eyes were burning with unshed tears. That she could think of something so compassionate made him feel that she really was still in there somewhere.

"If you wouldn't mind," he replied. He found that despite the fact that he doubted he'd survive this encounter, he was actually reluctant to die. He looked at Susan and saw the echo of her living self in her eyes, the knowledge that his death would bring her pain and he... didn't want to leave her.

"Take her down, then, please," Tomoko told him.

"Susan, would you like to go on a trip?" he asked her and she gave him an impish grin.

"You taking me dancing, love?" she asked and he shook his head.

"Next time, I promise," he told her. She cocked her head at him, serious now and looking a bit concerned, but she nodded, trusting him.

Guinn walked over to where her black box was mounted on the wall. Susan went up on her toes to kiss him softly, arms twining around his neck, and even though he couldn't feel much more that the soft sensation of energy moving through him, he still leaned into the kiss, one arm around her waist. He ever so gently disconnected her and she faded instantly, her eyes never moving from his face, leaving him standing there, holding onto nothing at all.

"She has to come with us," Tomoko looked at him. "Because I cannot risk the possibility she might tell someone else that we were here." He nodded, as her mind supplied a logical reason for her compassionate response.

"If you'd told her that my life depended on her silence, she never would have said a thing," he said, cradling the box against his chest and knowing that Susan would have died before she betrayed him. After all, his wife had already chosen death before surrender at least once.

"Possibly, but what was hacked once may be hacked again. We'll take her back to my TARDIS and set her up there for you, as you'll likely be with us for a long time. Now, you will need these tools." she handed him a notepad with a list of equipment and he resisted the urge to explain that you couldn't actually 'hack' a matrix ghost. She was Susan, dead, with some gaps in her memory, but still Susan, his stubborn, fiercely independent bondmate. She wasn't a computer program in the way that Tomoko understood it.

Then again, Tomoko wasn't a computer program either; she was a live person, and she'd been effectively "hacked" by Rassilon. He wondered if perhaps she perceived the holographic Susan as another live person, and potentially vulnerable to the same danger… but he had no time for philosophy just now.

He nodded and began pulling the parts and tools, moving a bit slowly and stiffly, still aching a bit from where his skin was still healing. She watched him for a moment and then scowled.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Tomoko, I nearly died, I'm still recovering," he sighed, reaching up to a high shelf with a groan. "I feel terrible, if you must know. Susan would scold me if she knew I was doing anything strenuous." The last bit he said with a small smile, picking up the black box again and turning it in his hands. He could feel the soft warmth of her radiating into him from it and he cradled it against himself again.

"Mmm… unfortunately, time is of the essence. I don't dare push this much farther."

"Let's go then," he sighed and walked out of the room, carrying Susan's box and the tool bag, and feeling tired, sad, and filled with regrets.

They walked back towards the TARDIS and she gestured him inside, the Manifold swarming around her as she walked, like a cloud of silver, buzzing and clicking as they went.

"Install that box at once please." She didn't speak again until he had returned. Tomoko was already at the console, setting them in flight and he could see that she had a crease of unhappiness between her brows, as the conflicting sides of herself were warring it out inside of her.

He glanced behind him and he saw Susan in the doorway to the TARDIS interior. She put her finger to her lips and grinned at him, those feline green eyes dancing.

He smiled at her, feeling better just knowing that she was there.

"Now, let's get you to Rassilon," Tomoko muttered and he watched Susan frown, slipping backwards away down the hall. "And here, sit down for a minute. We'll be busy soon, rest up while you can."

"As you say," he replied, looking at the console sadly. He was worried now that Susan might try something and get hurt. Even though she was, technically, already dead, he was scared for her.

Maybe bringing her along had been a bad idea.

* * *

Aislynn looked at the room. She couldn't move, not even her eyes, but she was forcing herself to be calm. She could see Freeya out of the corner of one eye, and Dar out of the corner of the other.

Very luckily, her current command structure did not forbid mental contact. She wondered if that had been an oversight on his part, or if he simply didn't care. Tomoko hadn't added to her commands either and she wasn't sure what to make of that. She was not a particularly gifted telepath, but she did possess the basic ability of her people.

She tried Freeya first.

/Freeya… can you hear me?/

/Uh... yeah? Who's that?/ the child returned, looking around in alarm.

/It's Aislynn. I am sitting behind you./

/Infected.../ the child's fright was projected back to her, as she was too young to block her full thoughts and send only what she meant to.

That cut went deep, but it wasn't the child's fault, and although Aislynn mentally winced, she was careful not to allow any trace of hurt back through the link, keeping her own thoughts calm and soothing.

/Not with Dalek Nanites any more, Susan fixed that. I still have Time Lord Nanites, but I have my mind. I won't hurt you./

As if she'd used a magic wand, the mere mention of Susan's name relaxed the child instantly.

/Cookies,/ came the thought, along with a sensation of love and warmth. /Okay,/ she thought towards Aislynn with a bit more coherence and intent.

/Dar is here also. He is sitting behind you to your left. You can't see him from where you are./

/Is he okay?/ the little girl asked.

/He was knocked out, but he is all right. He'll wake up presently./

/They killed Justinian,/ she told Aislynn. /Rassilon took his body./ Her thoughts were filled with images of the boy sobbing and screaming, as he was dragged away by Tomoko, while Freeya had wept and been helpless to do anything.

/Oh Sweetie…/ Aislynn cuddled the child for a while, mentally.

/He dreamed this before, he dreamed that he was killed, he knew it was going to happen./ Her mind was nearly breaking apart from everything she'd suffered, but Aislynn could feel her struggling to stay calm regardless, clinging to her with desperate sorrow and Aislynn wrapped Freeya up in her warmth and affection, pouring confidence and gentle support into her.

/The Doctor and Koschei are both on their way. They are coming for you. If anyone can get it sorted, they can./

While Freeya's mind held nothing but warmth and love for Koschei, there was an equal amount of fear in her towards the Doctor, the man who'd destroyed Gallifrey.

"I want Koschei," she murmured aloud, her eyes filling with tears.

/He's coming,/ Aislynn reassured her. /I saw it myself./

/Okay,/ Freeya replied, fighting her fears so that she could think straight and plan. /What do we do now?/

/For now, if you can be brave for a little while longer, I am going to try to wake up Agent Darginian./

/ Okay.../

Aislynn studied Dar out of the corner of her eye. Unlike what she'd done with Freeya, she sent him a much sharper poke.

/Agent Darginian! Come on, up you get!/

He didn't respond immediately. Aislynn closed her eyes and tried to evaluate her chances.

She was long since accustomed to doing this. It had been so many years since she had truly been able to decide her own course. By now she had mastered the art of trying to see where circumstances stood, then trying out different ideas in her own head to see if any of them could possibly be utilized to further her goals. It was a dreary way to live, but she had almost forgotten that anything else existed.

She poked Dar again.

/Wake up at once, I say!/ She gave him a few minutes, then gave him another poke. /Freeya is depending on you!/ she scolded him.

/Ow! Aislynn, I hear you, please just stop, I don't want you in my head anymore!/ he snapped back and the command, along with the wave of pain coming off of him, was enough to push her back from his mind. She recalled suddenly Susan's revelation from before. Being in her mind is what had sent him to hospital before. She wondered if perhaps her mental touch was even more painful to him for that reason.

Well, she knew he was awake, and that was enough for now. He would watch out for Freeya, which had been her basic concern. She settled in to wait, and tried to fend off the feeling of despair trying to creep into her soul.

/Sorry, that was meant to be a suggestion,/he groaned mentally. /Do what you have to do,/ he corrected.

/It's all right. Mostly I just wanted to be sure that you were awake and could help watch out for Freeya./

/Yes, sorry, head really hurts,/ he replied a bit brokenly.

/I would Sing for you, but without a vocal component… well, it's not much use, I am afraid./

/S'all right,/ he slurred a bit. /Concussion I think. It will heal in an hour or so./

She automatically tried to nod and almost laughed at herself when her head did not move.

/Do you want to know the current situation, or would you prefer to rest?/

/Give it to me, if you please, I need to know,/ he replied, his mental voice pained, but not as agonized as before.

/We are on a Shadow Proclamation cruiser called the Valour. We have just disabled three of their pursuit ships and scattered the rest. Rassilon occupies the body of a young boy… Justinian I believe is his name? Freeya is here. She is wearing a collar of some sort. The girl Tomoko is a thrall of Rassilon. They both left the bridge, Rassilon two hours ago and Tomoko an hour and a half ago. I have been ordered to remain still by Rassilon, so I'm afraid that I can't move at all./

/So, we're in deep trouble, then?/ he teased gently. /Not to worry, I'm sure that an Oncoming Storm is coming to make Rassilon's day rather unpleasant./ He wiggled a bit in his chair. /I'm afraid I'm rather stuck just now myself./

/As are we all. It seems that Tomoko believes in efficiency, which appears to include bindings./ She paused. /If the Doctor comes, he will almost certainly bring Scout Commander Taydin with him./

/Your co-pilot isn't exactly shabby in the rescue department either,/ Dar agreed.

/Of course not, he is a hero. That isn't what concerns me. This must not devolve to Singer against Singer. Surely you have heard of the Six Minute Song? The Nine Minute Song? Both horrible disasters./

/I'd rather not have that happen either,/ Dar agreed. /But, that's not up to us./ His mental tone was rather grim as he said this.

/No. So many things aren't up to us,/ her tone was sad. /I always tell myself I'll get used to it, but I never quite manage to do so./

/ Not something you ever can get used to,/ he shrugged.

/If it comes to Singer against Singer, things will be very fluid at that point. I expect you will be free to act. I want you to promise me that you will… do whatever it takes to prevent such a disaster./

/If you're going to get all noble on me Aislynn, I might cry,/ he snarked and rolled his eyes. /Not going to let the real estate values around here go down, so don't get your knickers in a twist./

/Thank you, Agent Darginian… do you hear that? I believe we are about to have company./

Adie's TARDIS wheezed its way into existence, taking the form of a bulkhead poking out from the wall. The door opened and Tomoko came out, gesturing and Guinn followed her out, with a silvery escort and looking rather grim.

"Did you miss me while I was gone? Still secure? Dar! You're awake!" Tomoko looked thrilled. "Look who I brought you!"

"Hello, Guinn, nice little party we're having here," Dar told him.

"Rather exclusive guest list," Guinn snarked back and nodded at Aislynn, who wasn't able to respond physically and didn't want to risk alerting Tomoko by replying mentally.

"Guinn!" Freeya called and he went to hug her, wrapping his arms around her, and holding the little girl close to him, as best he could through all the tight bindings.

Aislynn watched him cuddling the child, stroking her head, and soothing her, his affection for her plain to be seen and the last vestiges of her discomfort with the Master faded. Any man, who could love a child that much, couldn't be evil.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Hearts of Glass

Tomoko went to Dar and beamed at him. Dar met her gaze and his brain stuttered to a halt. This was the first time he'd seen her, since she'd been turned into a Time Lord and the shock of what she was now, left him speechless.

She was glorious. The hot bright spark of her had unfolded, like a butterfly finally escaping it's cocoon. She was radiant and glowing and he was instantly lost, feeling himself tumbling into her eyes with a sensation of wonderment mixed with horrified dread.

"I am so glad to see you are awake… ooo, that's a lump, isn't it? Hang on, I've got some supplies…," she chattered cheerfully at him and he forced a causal smile to his lips, trying not to show how desperately shaken he was.

"Hello, kid, yeah, bit of a concussion," he told her, struggling for words. For centuries, he'd been glib and smooth and just then, a reed-thin girl with huge hazel eyes was robbing him of speech and breath in a way that utterly terrified him.

"See if this helps," she pointed a tissue regenerator from the first aid kit at the wound and pressed the button. It hummed and the pain in his head vanished, but the confusion in his hearts only grew. She was being controlled by Rassilon and, at some point, in order to save everyone else, he might have to kill her. He knew now though, that doing so would cost him even more than he'd already known it would.

"Thanks kid, didn't want to die with a headache," he snorted, keeping his tone wryly amused and allowing no hint of his inner turmoil to be seen. This near to him, she was like a huge gravity well, pulling at him, and he had to fight to keep himself upright and away from her. He crossed his arms over his chest protectively, praying that the golden cord shimmering faintly between them would be lost in the general noise of all the other energy that was swirling around them.

"You're too useful for him to kill, especially if you behave," she informed him. "Right now, he's busy dealing with the Black Archive. Now come on, I am taking you both to the Main Computer Room to meet Rassilon."

"We've met before," Dar said dryly. It was an honour he would much rather have foregone, especially with his new found vulnerability. If Rassilon saw the cord between them, well, things could get even worse than they already were. Dar was of Rassilon's own line, a fact that he'd tried to ignore for a long time. However, it made him acutely vulnerable. He was a close enough biological match, to his less than esteemed ancestor, that he could be used as a bio-receptacle, if Rassilon decided he needed to switch bodies. A bond to a potential Arkytior channel could be quite a temptation for him.

"Well then perhaps the term would be 'Reunion?'" she chirped and Dar found this cheerful stranger to be a painfully bad copy of his own Tomoko. Terrified for her, as well as for himself, he forced a bland expression to his face.

"Yippee," Dar dead-panned, while nearby, Guinn just looked grim-faced.

Tomoko turned to address Freeya, who looked very small and frightened in the huge chair, wrapped up like a parcel and immobilized.

"You can stay tied up here, or go back to your cell, which would you prefer?" she asked and Dar eyed her measuringly. Just how much leeway was Rassilon giving her anyway? He didn't know for sure and he was being careful not to hope too much. Anything he said or did could be reported back to Rassilon by her, so he couldn't trust her, as much as he desperately longed to.

"I want to stay here," Freeya replied, her eyes on Guinn and her face very worried. Dar supposed that she wanted to be as close to Guinn as she could be and he understood that. Guinn, Koschei, and Susan were as near enough her parents now as made no difference.

"Fine," Tomoko agreed, still with that unnaturally cheery air, and waved Guinn and Dar off of the bridge. "This way," Tomoko paused, listening very intently, as several of the fireflies in her hair lit in patterns, then shook it off.

* * *

They followed after her through the bridge doors, which opened with a bit of a wheeze, rather than their usual whooshing sound. Guinn noted that there was a great deal of damage being repaired, presumably from when they had stolen the ship from the Shadow Proclamation. They went down several corridors where Manifold were working away at repairs.

"Are these the same Manifold from the Loops," Guinn asked, curious about how they came to be here, and Tomoko turned to answer him.

"Yes, these few survived the firing of the Lens and hid. They returned to where they were created, looking for their Mother," she explained and Guinn nodded his understanding.

"So they went back to the Command Centre looking for the Rani. What happened to them after that?" he asked.

"They were scared," Tomoko murmured, stroking a beetle as it wandered across her shoulder. "They can't function without a Mother and they were so few and they couldn't replicate without dying." She looked at them sadly and Guinn was struck by how gently she touched the insect. "So, they waited."

"And Rassilon found them?" Dar asked and Guinn tried not to notice the bond between him and Tomoko, or how Dar had his arms crossed and his head lowered in a self-protective stance.

"Yes!" Tomoko enthused. "He reached out to them from the computer systems and gave them a purpose, a mother who could guide them with wisdom." She looked exalted and Guinn felt sick. She'd been brainwashed, her natural rebellion and fire turned to a near religious fervour. He thought of how he'd wiped her personality, planned to upload something less 'difficult' into her and the self-loathing that triggered nearly made him vomit.

"Wonderful," he replied, hoping that his pained look would be put down to his injuries.

"Isn't it?" Tomoko agreed, smiling broadly, and then she resumed their trek to meet the monster that still haunted Guinn's dreams.

* * *

The Doctor looked up at Koschei and saw the way he was sitting. He was hunched over his tablet, shoulders drawn down and face looking pinched and he frowned.

"What's wrong?" he asked and Koschei looked up at him.

"I... I've been trying to reach Guinn," he admitted.

"And?" the Doctor prompted after a long silence.

"I can sense that he's still alive, but he's shut up tightly and there is something really wrong."

"Let's get to the Command Centre then, right away!" the Doctor replied, jumping to his feet.

"I don't think he's there anymore," Koschei told him, looking up with worried blue eyes.

The Doctor sat down slowly, running various thoughts through his head, calculating the various factors of how Rassilon thought.

"You think Rassilon has him." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah... I think that if it were anyone but Rassilon, he'd be yelling for help from me, rather than trying to hide his distress," Koschei explained and the Doctor nodded.

"We need to call Susan, tell her what happened," the Doctor pointed out and Koschei winced.

"I don't want to bother her while she's taking care of the kids, not when I only have a suspicion and no real facts," he protested and the Doctor leaned back and crossed his arms.

"It's your funeral," he finally replied and Koschei blinked at him, looking startled by the sentiment, but the Doctor knew how much Susan hated having things kept from her and was fairly sure that she'd go absolutely spare when she found out. Still, he also knew that interfering in another couple's marriage was always a bad idea. Unless he really wanted to.

Just then though, he had other things on his mind. Like stopping Rassilon.

* * *

The door to which Tomoko led Dar and Koschei had clearly been forced into the frame and then welded there, by the Manifold, judging by the little octagonal cells here and there.

Tomoko entered and bowed politely at Rassilon.

"One mechanical engineer, as requested," she told him. "And I brought along the spy too, since we're basically dealing with security."

"Thank you, Tomoko," he replied and then turned to look at them.

Dar tried not to feel sick, as the little boy's eyes turned to appraise him.

Justin had been a dark haired boy with blue eyes and a thin sensitive face. Now, he was inhabited by something so vile and terrible, it was like a horrible fat toad was squatting on his soul.

"Keep Captain Darginian under close observation," Rassilon instructed and then turned to look at Guinn. "Would you be so kind as to open these files for me? You are far too clever to have failed to figure out the consequences for disobedience."

With an abrupt nod, Guinn went to work and Dar noted that he couldn't seem to bring himself to look at Rassilon at all.

Tomoko had directed several fireflies towards Dar, who had settled on his shoulders and the cuffs of his sleeves, and then she had fallen into conversation with them. They would glow and Tomoko would move her hands around, as if she were speaking, but never said anything audibly.

He could feel tiny claws digging into the fabric of his sleeve and, despite himself, found himself feeling comforted by their presence. He knew what they were, knew that they could kill him in a heartsbeat, but even so, they seemed... friendly.

"Oh," she caught herself, and turned back to Dar. "I expect there are security protocols and things. If Guinn has trouble with them, I thought you could take a look."

"I very much doubt that he'll need my help," Dar replied, not wanting to have his hands occupied around Rassilon, just in case he had the opportunity to push him out an airlock or something.

"Then you get to stand around and do nothing, don't you? Like a holiday."

"Oh yes, very jolly," Dar replied.

"Do stop twittering you two," Rassilon scolded. "There is work to be done. Tomoko, get the good Captain a proper cell, summon the Singer, and then see if you can get this ship repaired."

"Repairs are at…" Tomoko looked at one of the fireflies, who glowed back at her, "Fifty-seven percent."

"You Tomoko, can go now and actually put your hands to work!" Rassilon explained to her in a tone of extreme patience.

"Of course," Tomoko agreed and Dar felt a little stab in his hearts as she beamed at Rassilon genially. He kept his arms crossed over his hearts and concentrated on not allowing Rassilon to get even a glimpse of what had happened between them.

She took him to his cell. It didn't look like much. It was the standard cot-and-forcefield arrangement typical of the Master's cells. She gestured, and several fireflies entered the cubicle with him.

"Ah, the Honeymoon Suite," he quipped and she chuckled and gestured at the fireflies.

"Here. These will keep you company." She paused. "You can talk to them, you know… they understand what you say," she told him and there was something hesitant in her manner just then, as though she wasn't quite sure why she was telling him that.

"Sure, kid, I'll tell them the unexpurgated accounts of my exploits," he replied and then looked at them. "On second thought, they seem a bit young for that, I'll edit out the dirty bits." She giggled.

"Will there be anything left after that?"

"Not a lot, no," he told her, with a mournful air.

"Well, then..." She stepped back, her hand on the forcefield control.

"Later, kid," he told her and then sat down on the cot and eyed the bugs. "Right, let's start with a little history lesson, shall we?" he began and his voice, telling stories to the fireflies, was what she heard as she headed back to do Rassilon's bidding. Dar sat in his cell, talking to the fireflies and wondering what he was going to do.

* * *

Tomoko rubbed her hands together as she came back onto the bridge.

"Hey, kid," she smiled at Freeya. "Afraid I've got a job for you; we're going to put you to work. You too, Aislynn."

"Doing what?" Freeya asked in an uncertain voice.

"You'll be doing what you are best at." Tomoko was working with Aislynn's bindings. "As for you, Aislynn, Rassilon wants to see you."

Aislynn's head jerked several times, strangely, but then she lifted her head again and looked at Tomoko with eyes that seemed somehow blanker than before.

"Off you go then, go on."

Aislynn stood up and moved rather robotically down the hallway.

"So," Tomoko returned to Freeya, worked with the bindings, freed her hands, and put a tablet in them. Several fireflies came and perched on it. Then she undid the rest of the child's bindings, and helped her to stand up.

"What's all this then?"

"I'm taking you back to the cell block. You can't stay on the bridge any more."

"But…" Her head turned to look down the hallway, towards where Guinn had vanished.

"I know, but it is the way it has to be." She took Freeya's hand and gave it a gentle pull, and the child followed her. "We have a problem… here, check it out. Go on."

Freeya turned on the tablet and looked at the damage report. In a moment or two she had spotted something that worried her, and zoomed in on it.

"Is that the Charged Tassadar Array?"

"It is," confirmed Tomoko.

"We're not going to be able to drop out of warp! We'll be stuck out here forever!"

"Don't be scared," Tomoko soothed. "We can drop out of warp. All it means is that we have to fix that panel."

"But it's on the outside of the ship!" Freeya's eyes were very round. "You're not going outside the ship while we're in warp, are you?"

"That's about the size of it." Tomoko replied and Freeya just stared at her with her mouth open. Tomoko nodded, it wasn't as though she didn't know how dangerous it was going to be, but there was a part of her that was almost looking forward to it.

She wasn't sure if her second thoughts were trying to get her killed, or if she was just pleased that she might be able to die for Rassilon, but either way, she was ready.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - Elysium

Freeya just stared at her with her mouth open. She looked frightened anf Tomoko felt moved to reassure her.

"No," Tomoko said, "Don't be scared. Think this through. Don't forget the slipstream. We have about six feet of slipstream, and I'm five-four. That still leaves me about four inches of clearance, even when wearing mag-boots and an armoured spacesuit."

The little girl calmed a bit, her face screwed up in concentration, as she studied the schematics.

"Yes, that's true, but…" She frowned, "You're not going to be able to check your progress. Nothing is going to work out there. You won't have any tools. You're only going to have a little while, even in an armoured suit, before it begins to disintegrate."

"I'll have a whole thirty minutes, besides, look how close the panel is to this airlock! I'll come out here, four minutes to the panel, work for twenty minutes, four minutes back, come in, swap suits. This ship used to have a crew of two hundred, and every one of them had been issued an armoured suit along with their uniforms."

"Okay," Freeya's nodded her agreement. "So, how will you find out if the repairs are doing any good?"

"That's where you come in. You're going to help me check my progress. You can see it on the screen."

"But... comms won't work out there," she reminded Tomoko, waving at the forward screen where the blur of warp was going by.

"Nope, but don't forget these," Tomoko's finger stroked the back of one of the fireflies, and it lit up with a tiny humming noise. "I can hear the fireflies, and the fireflies can hear you."

Freeya frowned.

"Is that all they do?" she asked and Tomoko smiled.

"You're a clever girl, Freeya, don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. No, that isn't all they do. They're also going to be watching out for the tablet. I have complete faith that, given five unsupervised minutes, you can turn it into a Trans Mat system, a fully functioning TARDIS, or possibly an atomic bomb."

She smirked at the little girl, who giggled a little, with a slightly guilty look.

"Uh-huh, that is what I thought. So, they like you. They are not going to hurt you, but they are under orders to prevent you from sabotaging the tablet, so don't try it."

"Like I would," Freeya shot back. "It's a Fabren 3460, with advanced polynomial clearance!" She sounded scandalized at the thought of destroying something so nice.

"Yeah, I couldn't hurt one of those either." They had reached the cell blocks, and Tomoko waved the force field open. "You have a new cell-mate!"

Dar stood up, looking surprised. The fireflies, which had been arranged in a semicircle around him, flitted up and around. Several additional fireflies zoomed into the cell, along with some beetles, ants, and wasps.

"Dar!" Tomoko put a hand to Freeya's back and gave her a very gentle nudge into the cell. "This is your new cell-mate."

Dar swooped Freeya into his arms, and she clung to him like a limpet.

"I'm starting repairs in thirty minutes. Behave, the both of you," she growled at them, reactivated the force field, and left them to their own devices.

* * *

"So, that's what we've got on the theft," the Doctor concluded.

"So, this girl is being mentally controlled by the criminal Time Lord?" the Architect asked, looking grimly at the data.

"Yes, he's an extremely powerful telepath, there is really nothing she could conceivably do to resist him," Taydin replied and the others nodded.

"Very well. I would ask that our own telepaths examine her, once she's been apprehended," the Architect requested and the Doctor nodded."Now, we could natter on all day, but I know that you are in a hurry to track down this criminal."

"I'm afraid so, Madame Architect. We cannot permit him to commit more crimes in this universe, not to mention that we need to rescue the hostages," the Doctor replied and she waved them off with a look of understanding.

"Good luck," she told them and they left the office.

"This is not going to be easy," Rose pointed out.

"I do believe that was an epic understatement," Jake replied with a twisted smile and Rose elbowed him with a chuckle. "We'll have to take the long way around to get to the Elysium. The damage to the base was pretty bad."

They made their way through the corridors, seeing the shell-shocked police officers, with their frowning faces and the Doctor had a feeling that Rassilon was going to be going onto their 'Most Wanted List' rather quickly.

Taydin didn't say a word on the walk back, merely pulled out his key to the Elysium, and opened the door for them all. His face was back to the blank impassivity of before and the Doctor cursed Rassilon. Taydin had been healing far more rapidly than the Doctor had been expecting and now he was back to looking and acting like he had before he had met Aislynn.

Sometimes, his match matching skills were just a bit too good, he sighed to himself.

* * *

They all filed in the Elysium and Taydin went to the console, but there was no response.

"Something is wrong," he commented and Rose leaned down, like she was listening to the TARDIS.

"She's worried," Rose informed him. "She wants to know where Aislynn is. She doesn't want to leave without her."

Taydin stroked the console gently, trying to soothe the soul of the ship.

"She's been captured, but we're going to go rescue her," he told the Elysium.

"She doesn't like that at all, she has orders from Aislynn, but she doesn't want to carry them out," Rose told him, her face set in a frown.

"What sort of orders?" the Doctor asked and Rose shook her head.

"His eyes only," she told the Doctor and gestured at Taydin, who jerked in surprise.

"Here, she's starting," Rose sighed and gently patted the console.

Screens popped up and subroutines began running, words and numbers blurring past them as Aislynn's name was deleted from authorization lists as they watched. She was dropped from the files and erased from every memory bank in the ship. The controls rearranged themselves back to their default settings. Even the architecture changed, the eclectic beauty vanishing bit by bit. Although the plants remained in their spots, the walls and ceilings became the plain white walls and roundels of a basic desktop.

The message was clear: the Elysium was now his, lock, stock, and barrel.

There was also a file for him He looked at the screen and the others simply nodded and left the room, giving him privacy.

He hit the 'play' button and an image of Aislynn was standing there, in robes of blue, her hair still long, all springy copper curls, her face terribly gray and pale. She must have taped the message some time ago, when she was still very sick, he realized unhappily. When it was quite possible that she could have Turned.

"Scout Commander Taydin," she told him softly, her voice ragged, but still melodic, "I have set up this recording to play, once I am no longer capable of piloting the Elysium, a day that draws closer to me all the time. I would like to think that I passed on quietly. If not, then I am very sorry and I very much hope that no one was harmed." There was a brief pause, while she stood, eyes agonized, but her hands quietly composed, determined to retain her dignity until the very end.

"The Elysium is… the finest ship in the universe. She has been my true and faithful friend and I know that she loves you and will be there for you, as well. I leave her to you with full confidence that you will protect her. It was… an honour to have known you. My life would have been poorer for your absence. Thank you for everything you have done for me. Goodbye, Scout Commander Taydin. Remember me well."

There was no more.

The ship made a mournful wheeze and Taydin lost his already frayed temper.

"Now, stop that you!" he growled and reset the ship back to its previous condition. He thought it over for a bit, trying to balance her control by Rassilon with his own bone deep need to have her as part of the crew still. A need he refused to examine too closely. He re-entered Aislynn's name in as limited co-pilot. She couldn't fly without his co-operation, but she was still listed. That way if she was being controlled, he could override her commands, but he could also still feel as though she was just absent, not gone forever.

"We're going to get her back!" he promised the Elysium. She was fighting him, as though she was in two minds about her orders and Taydin had to enter the command twice before it was accepted.

"She likes that much better," Rose told him as she came into the console room.

"Me too," he murmured and Rose gave him a knowing look, but said nothing, merely taking up her position at the console. The rest of them filled back in and Taydin input coordinates.

With a pleased hum, the Elysium de-materialized from the Shadow Base.

* * *

"Right, let's get this rescue party going," the Doctor chortled and went to take up position at the console. Adie stood beside her uncle, watching the screens and worrying.

"Koschei, Rose, please take second and third piloting positions," Taydin interrupted and waved the Doctor off. The Doctor pouted, but gave in gracefully, instead choosing to pace up and down the room, arms behind his back.

"So, what do we know so far?" he asked the others and Rose came over to him, putting her arms around him, and holding tightly to him. He put an arm around her as well, head tilting to rest against her hair and their energy swirled around each other.

Taydin turned his face away, agony etched on his features, and Adie wondered why she hadn't seen it before. He had a hole that matched her own. It was smaller, less well defined, as though it had healed a bit over time, but it was there nonetheless. At some point, Taydin had had a bond mate and she, or he, had died.

Adie understood. She shyly put her hand on his own, trying to give him a bit of comfort. This was a pain that she knew far too well. Then, remembering what the Doctor had told her, she looked for Taydin's thread, to see if it was black or gold.

It was dead black and a bit charred looking, like the death had been agonizing and had burned up the cord to him. He looked at her, his eyes unguarded for a moment.

/She was Infected,/ he told her, his mental voice bleak. /My wife. I was forced to kill her./ He turned away, shutting her out completely, so that barely even a thread of his Song was audible to her. He wrapped his pain around himself and focused entirely on the Elysium.

There was nothing that Adie could do to ease that pain. She patted his hand awkwardly, then returned to her console.

* * *

Diana pursed her lips, thinking over the Doctor's question. What did they know so far?

"Well," she offered, "Being dead really improved Rassilon a lot," she snarked, but then got serious. "Let's see. He has five known hostages, if we count Tomoko. He's stolen a TARDIS and a police cruiser, attacked the Shadow Proclamation station, and knocked out like six more police cruisers doing it. And the Manifold was involved so I guess… they are on his side now?" She finished rather uncertainly, clearly expecting that she was putting her feet in her mouth again.

"That about sums up our knowledge," the Doctor sighed. "Though, we do know one other thing. Justinian," he started and then paused. "Justinian is Rassilon's clone."

The other Time Lords all stared at the Doctor in horror.

"Okay, so that's bad, I'm guessing," Diana put in.

"Yeah, the biologically matching receptacles makes cohesion far simpler," the Doctor explained.

"What?" Diana asked.

"He will be able to use Justinian's body far more easily than Tomoko's," Rose clarified.

"So, he downloaded himself into Tomoko, then kidnapped Justin, and possessed him?" Diana asked and the Doctor nodded.

"Justinian is only a child. He's too young to have developed proper mental resistance," Koschei added, looking a bit sick. "Rassilon's mind in his head will destroy him over time, assuming he wasn't killed instantly by the process of implantation."

"Okay, so we have a time limit. Noted. Where does the Manifold come in? I mean, where did he get them? Were there, like, prototypes on the station or something? I wish Guinn was here, I would ask him." Diana looked at Koschei. "Can you ask him?"

"I.. uh, can't. I lost contact with him a bit back," he replied with a wince and the Doctor looked unsurprised, so Diana assumed that he already knew that.

"Have you asked Susan?" Rose enquired.

"No, I really don't want her mind concentrated on anything but healing the children right now," Koschei replied.

"That's all very well, but what if he's been captured?" Taydin put in and Koschei winced again.

"Then I really don't want her to get upset," he retorted. "The last thing any of us need is to ... alarm... the Arkytior!"

"So," Diana prompted, "He's maybe… missing?" She was pacing around and then face-palmed as a thought occurred to her. "Aw, hell, of course he's missing, Tomoko hacked the bloody bolt hole, I saw her do it!"

"Fabulous," Koschei sighed.

"She's your niece," Rose snarked, giving the Doctor an irritated look.

"Yes, well, Guinn built them!" he retorted and winked at Diana. "Did a brilliant job of it too."

"Bit too brilliant," Koschei shrugged and then smiled at Diana. "So, six hostages."

Diana took a breath.

"Okay, let's think this through. While it should be patently obvious by now that I don't know much about Time Lord things, I do know Tomoko. If I was Tomoko… If I was Tomoko… and I had Rassilon in my head, he had the Manifold, and I had semi-autonomy… what would I do? What would I do?" She paced around for another minute.

"Well, apparently you'd avoid killing as many people as you could, so you'd probably find a way to get him away from highly populated areas," Rose pointed out.

"Yes. Let's also not forget what Tomoko Construct said," Adie reminded them.

"Ah yes, she did say that there was a second Construct with Tomoko," the Doctor agreed. "Now, knowing what we know about Tomoko and her Constructs, what do we think will happen?"

"Let's also not forget Freeya," Koschei pointed out. "That's my old TARDIS and Freeya has been learning programming from Dar and me, not to mention that she knows quite a few of my back-door codes." The others looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. "In case of emergencies, which this is!" he pointed out.

"Well, Freeya and the Tomoko Construct would be trying to find a way to contact us, or barring that, trying to find a way for us to follow after them," Rose suggested.

"Very well, let's look for some breadcrumbs," the Doctor suggested and set up a scan for bio-metals and the energy signature of the Valour.

"Doctor… in your opinion, can Tomoko be saved?" Diana asked him with unreadable eyes.

"If she's already been released by Rassilon, even partially, that means that her essential personality is still there," the Doctor told her. "So, yes, she can most certainly be saved."

Diana let out her breath in relief, feeling as though a huge load had been taken off of her shoulders. She really hadn't wanted to kill her sister.

"Do you think he is still hung up on the Arkytior?" she asked next and they all looked rather uncomfortable at that thought.

"Probably, but since Susan and Adyra both are already bonded, he's out of luck there," the Doctor replied with a shrug.

"But…" Diana looked doubtful. "You said that Tomoko was supposed to be a copy of Adyra, right?"

"Yes, as close as Guinn could make her, but we don't know if she received the genetic trigger that would allow her to become a conduit. Not all of the women of my line do, you know, even if they were cloned from one who did," he shook his head. "It's possible of course, but we can't know for sure, one way or the other."

"Why did Tomoko attack Shadow Base anyway?" Adyra asked, blue eyes narrowed in thought.

"Ah, the Shadow Architect mentioned that, actually," Koschei sighed. "That section where we were? It just happened to be the main storage data-bank for all their top secret information."

"Why hack it, after all, when you can just steal the whole thing," the Doctor pointed out.

"And why steal it with a cruiser? You have a TARDIS, why not materialize around it and leave?"

"You can't do that," the Doctor began and then paused. "I mean, you could conceivably materialize around it, but not without seriously compromising the integrity of the base. There were walls in between it and other things, it would have been terribly messy and rather finicky piloting."

"Okay, so, if he kidnapped Guinn, it was because he needed him to make the data-banks work, after they were all ripped out of their sockets, or something, but why did he need Aislynn, Dar, or Freeya?"

"Freeya... is because of me," Koschei choked out. "To keep me from acting against him." Diana thought back to all the times she'd seen the little girl in Koschei's workshop, the obvious affection he had for her, and nodded.

"Aislynn is a Singer and she can be completely controlled," Taydin added. "The utility there is... obvious." Taydin's face was utterly blank, but Diana didn't need to be a telepath to see that he was hurting.

"Got it. So Aislynn is a weapon, Freeya is an actual hostage, Justin for the body, Tomoko was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Guinn for mechanical engineering, and the Manifold for another weapon I guess. Dar, for some reason we haven't figured out yet, plus a TARDIS and a police cruiser. Sounds like he is gathering a crew."

"More accurately, an army," Taydin replied and Jake looked up at them in sudden interest.

"You think he's going to try to take over the universe or something?" he asked.

"Oh yes, the universe... or something," the Doctor replied. "Most definitely."

* * *

Tomoko grumbled at the panel, pulling parts out of it and letting them drift away. She continued to be amused by the flashes they made once they drifted out of the slipstream and hit the warp field.

The secondary voice in her head was quite pleased, as if they were making considerable progress. She wasn't sure with what, as the panel was being wretchedly stubborn.

Still, she could hear, and that was the main thing just now. She understood the firefly in her ear, cuddled between her head and the helmet's padding, as it hummed its little hum. More of them were dancing around the helmet, flitting about seemingly heedless of the warp field, though none of them flew so high as to intersect it.

A nip on her ear brought her back to herself. The fireflies were very conscientious about the holdout time of the armoured suits, and as she looked down at her arm, she saw the suit was smouldering. The armour was thin and it was definitely time to turn back.

She stood up with care, her mag-boots keeping her safely locked to the hull.

The warp stream was lovely this close up, with its flashing colours and lights. It was also deadly dangerous; her teeth ached from its proximity. One step at a time, she struggled back to the airlock, careful of any fissures or eddies that happened to be extra low in the slipstream. One touch and she was ash and cinders.

So, she was extremely careful as she walked across the hull.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 - Smoking Section

Tomoko crawled back into the airlock and let it cycle. She tried to remove the helmet, but it wouldn't budge, and she sighed. This would be the fourth suit she was going to have to cut herself out of because the joints had welded together. She struggled with her sonic a bit until she could get the helmet off of her head, then pulled it off, and dropped it on the floor, where it lay smoking.

When the airlock cycled open, she saw Dar standing on the other side, face expressionless, as he took the burning suit from her and handed her a new one. She had debated about letting him out of the cell, but she needed the help and the fireflies kept him in line.

"You're smoking," he commented dryly.

"Warp field is hell on the suits," Tomoko agreed. "Good thing we have so many… it's going pretty well though. Few more suits, I think."

"I'll get more from the supply locker," he told her and then paused. "Do try not to die, will you?" he suggested and then headed back to the suit locker.

"Not dying has always been part of the plan," Tomoko snarked, then began cutting off the gloves so she could get out of the suit.

Dar came back with three more suits and dumped them on the floor, before he reached for the gloves, helping her pull them off.

"Turn around," he told her.

"I shouldn't, but fine," she turned around, as all of the Fireflies turned to face him, watching carefully. It was weird, both parts of her brain trusted Dar. She knew he was a spy and really dangerous, but she couldn't make herself think of him as a threat and she didn't know why.

He said nothing, just began peeling her out of the suit, careful not to hurt her. Having him standing that close behind her was causing her hearts to flutter and that was also really weird. Why was she having this really strong reaction to him all of a sudden?

"Thanks," she said, rolling her shoulders to ease the tension, but also as something to do to buy herself a little time to think.

"Sure thing, kid," he replied.

"I've got all the arrays pulled," she began struggling into the next suit. All of them were rather large on her, but it couldn't be helped. "Now it is just a matter of wiring in the replacements."

"Right," he agreed and stepped forward to help her into it. Part of her realized that she ought to refuse his help, her confusion around him was cause for concern, but the second thoughts were leaning into the warmth of his energy with something suspiciously like a purr.

"Once I've got us out of warp, I will check in with Rassilon, see where we are going… thanks." The last word came out softly and she turned to see that weathered face, with eyes that gave nothing away, and she was split in two about what to think.

"Just be careful, all right?" he grumbled, shaking his head.

"Always am," she pulled on the gloves, trying to maintain cheerful banter and not let on about how much he disturbed her. "How is Freeya?"

"Scared to death," he admitted.

"I bet. I'm really not sure how to handle an eleven year old. I haven't been able to think of a way to make it less scary-looking. It was a big firefight."

"That's not why she's scared, kid," he sighed.

"No? What is she scared of? Me, I suppose?"

"No, kid, not you, at least not directly. She's scared of what Rassilon is going to do next. He's murdered her friend and has Guinn, who she cares about. She's scared that he's going to kill us all," he explained in a patient tone.

"Mmm. Poor kid. It's only right and proper to die for Rassilon, if he requires it, of course, but at eleven I don't know if she is old enough to realize it… back in a few," she put the helmet on, secured the straps, and gave him a thumbs-up, before heading back into the airlock.

* * *

Behind her, he watched her go, his eyes opaque, but his hearts sinking. He had hoped that she might be starting to come back to him, but she seemed instead to be drifting deeper under Rassilon's spell.

The worst part was that he was no longer sure if he'd even be able to kill her, when the time came.

Cursing his luck and thinking furiously, Dar desperately tried to come up with a plan. One that didn't include him having to murder his bondmate.

* * *

"Well, anything?" Diana asked impatiently, as the Time Lords all wandered around doing inexplicable things.

"Not yet," Taydin replied.

"We need, like, one of those whistles you can't hear with the human ear," she grumbled.

"Hang on, what's that?" Koschei asked, pointing to the faintest of traces on the monitor.

"Ion trail?" the Doctor asked and they all frowned at the screens.

"Looks a bit like a breadcrumb to me," Rose decided and the Doctor nodded slowly.

"It's worth a try," he agreed and they looked at each other and then began running around the console, setting the Elysium in motion and following the faint trail across the stars.

* * *

Tomoko was seated in the Captain's chair of the Valour, when the buzzer sounded. Freeya was monitoring Engineering, looking absurdly young and small in the large black faux leather chair. Dar was manning the weapons station, several large fireflies watching him carefully, for any sign of rebellion.

Guinn looked over from Navigation and his face was filled with concern.

"We're here," he told them all.

In front of them was a swirling vortex; a wormhole. Repairs or not, the Valour was not designed to go through wormholes, nor was she in in any shape to be attempting it for the first time, and Tomoko knew it well.

"Okay," she said. "ere we go. Don't worry, we'll be all right," she told Freeya with what she hoped was a confident smile.

The girl looked back at her dubiously and Tomoko couldn't blame her for that

The ship groaned and heaved beneath them. The screens were filled with static and the speakers blared with random noise. Swarms of bugs flew frantically here and there, trying to put out fires and make repairs on the fly, but things were breaking faster than they were able to fix them. The alarms were twisting out into a screeching that was making his teeth ache... they were hitting transition.

"Obviously a new definition of 'all right' that I wasn't previously aware of!" Dar snarked.

After a couple of minutes of sparks, there was an enormous tearing sensation, and then they were free-falling through an atmosphere. They were tumbling out of control, with minimal power. Tomoko staggered to her feet, clinging to the chairs and consoles to keep herself upright.

"Freeya, do you know how to do a damage report?" She was pointing at systems that needed repair and the Manifold were flowing out like water, rushing to the places that she indicated and getting to work on them, picking the information they needed from out her brain as well as from the computer systems themselves.

"Uh, I think so," the eleven year old replied, typing madly into the computer, trying hard not to panic as the ship plummeted into the gravity well.

Tomoko's voice was very calm considering their current situation.

"Basically, you need to find out what is broken. Then you prioritize the most important item first, and tell me what needs to be fixed."

"The engines not actually working seems really high priority to me!" Freeya shouted over the din.

"Me too," Dar agreed, through gritted teeth.

"That's okay, the beetles should be able to handle the mass of the ship, what else is broken?"

"I think it would be shorter to say what works," Freeya admitted. "We still have environmental and some of the navigation computers are still functional."

"Dar, try to get us down in one piece. Freeya, we will need to start planning what repairs we will do first once we land. Guinn, the landing may be bumpy and the straps are really big for Freeya, would you make sure she is strapped in properly?"

Guinn went over to Freeya and knelt beside her.

"Deep breaths, Freeya," he told her and gave her a pat on her shoulder, "It's going to be okay. These ships are very well designed." He began tightening the straps, making certain that she was webbed in securely.

"Okay, Guinn," she told him and tried to smile. He ruffled her hair, kissed her cheek, and went back to his station, strapping himself firmly into place. He looked at Dar, who gave him a small smile.

"You weren't there for it, but we've been in tougher places than this, Koschei and I," Dar assured him and Guinn smiled wryly.

"Then I am rather glad that I missed that," he replied in a dry tone, which made Dar snort a laugh, much to Freeya's startlement.

A shudder ran through the frame of the ship. Outside, the Manifold were latching onto anything and everything, trying to slow their descent. Tomoko was mumbling madly to herself, not seeming to be worried about the small explosions erupting from panels and bulkheads. She hit the intercom.

"Lord Rassilon, we will be landing in approximately four minutes. It may be rough, so I suggest you strap yourself in."

"Thank you, Tomoko, I have already done so," he replied, sounding perfectly calm.

Tomoko snapped the intercom off again.

"Found some nice soft sand for us." she snarked as the hull screamed underneath them from the strain.

"I have always found sand to be highly abrasive, any mud around?" Guinn asked, as they were rattled around in the ship.

"Water seems to be hard to come by on the surface, this is a desert world, three suns. Which we did miss, in all fairness." The ship gave a huge bump as it hit the atmosphere more solidly, then abruptly fell like a stone before being caught again. "Wormhole didn't do us any good, but Guinn'll set us down," she said without a thought that he might not.

"We missed all three suns? How fantastic!" Dar grumbled. "Well done Guinn, you missed three really huge stellar objects!"

"Hey, we are actually hitting the planet, as opposed to say, the moon!" Guinn snapped back. "We're crashing somewhere with an atmosphere, at least."

"We're not crashing! We're falling with style," snarked Tomoko, and then the screens were filling with solid browns and golds.

"Whatever you want to call it, kid!" Dar shouted back. "Hold on!"

The first impact nearly, but not quite, broke the ship in half. It bounced off the surface like a skipped stone, leaving an enormous crater in its wake, as it shot back into the air; a few miles later, it made another crater; after a much lower and shorter hop, it made a third, and then half a mile farther, it formed a fourth and final crater as it ploughed itself into the earth.

* * *

When Tomoko came to, she discovered that the straps in the chair had kept her in it, even after such a rough landing. The room had a lot of smoke, and she coughed.

"Everyone all right? Dar? Freeya? Guinn?"

The ship had splintered apart and the bridge was now open to the bright hot suns above them and Tomoko saw that both Dar and Guinn were gone, their stations having ripped free at some point during the crash. Nearby, Freeya lay in her webbing, several of the Manifold tenderly caring for her. Blood was pooling around her arm, where it lay at an unnatural angle on the engineering panels. She was unconscious, but Tomoko could see the faint rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

"Freeya…" Tomoko struggled with the straps until she managed to get out of her chair, and then staggered over. "Ouch, poor kid," she rummaged for her first-aid kit. She had reset broken arms many times and splinted it professionally.

"Tomoko," Rassilon's voice called out. "Are you injured?"

He staggered into the room, looking shaken, but otherwise unharmed.

"I'm not, but Freeya broke her arm… are you all right?"

"Quite well," he assured her. He looked down at the little girl with a considering air. "Is she still useful to us?"

"Absolutely." Tomoko finished splinting the arm and a number of the wasps came, spinning a cast for it. "She still holds the same position in Koschei's hearts and frankly I am going to need the extra hands for damage analysis, even if they are small ones."

"Very well," he replied, as if it didn't really matter one way or the other. "Then see to her injuries and get her healed up quickly. We have a lot of work to do." He looked around at the shattered ship and grimaced a bit. "A lot more than I would prefer. My schedule has to be reworked now, and I don't like that. Still, you did well getting us down."

Tomoko nodded, feeling pleased that she had earned his praise.

"The Manifold will dig us a burrow, see if we can't make ourselves look a bit less obvious. Dar and Guinn were both thrown free. I don't hold much for their chances." She turned away to check on some of the broken equipment.

There was something about that statement that made it seem as if all of the light had gone out of the world. Rassilon was here, should anything else be necessary? The dichotomy of her thoughts seemed to shrink to nothingness. She was surprised to find her cheeks wet. When she scrubbed them, all that came away was water. Why?

"I'll see about finding some goggles, the sand gets in your eyes."

"Not to worry, the Manifold are very creative, the Rani did some of her best work on them," he assured her with a pat on her arm. "They will have protected them during the crash." He looked thoughtful. "I can still feel their minds, so they are alive."

Now that she thought about it, Tomoko realized that she could sense them as well. Two Songs twined through the greater melody of their race, close, but muffled a bit.

"If anyone could do it, the Manifold could… It's a shame about the retrovirus, this is all we have," she mused, admiring a cricket as it carefully cleaned its antennae.

"I'm sure that with Guinn in our care, Susan could be persuaded to undo all of that," Rassilon mused. "Still, we must deal with what is possible now. This is what we have for resources. How far are we from the cave system?" he asked.

"By Manifold? We're several days travel out, even flying."

"Hm. Well, we need to gather our strength first. We have injured to be tended to. It would be impractical to go there now. Let's concentrate on seeing how much of the ship can be repaired, or at least salvaged, eh?"

"I'll get Freeya set up in Medi-bay and do a survey personally."

"That would be best, yes," Rassilon agreed and smiled genially at her. "We work well together."

"Thank you," she smiled at him, picked Freeya up in her arms, and headed down the hallway.

* * *

Rassilon stood for a bit, surveying the damage, clucked his tongue, and then returned to his own project. He had a top secret archive to read through, after all.

* * *

In the city of Farrulah, the chief Astronomer to the court of the Sultan, made his way quickly to the barracks, his feet, once clad in poor sandals, now bedecked in jewelled slippers.

"Hamman Frey, to see Lt. Randarian, please," he told the gate guard, who bowed to him and ushered him through with flattering haste and deference. He came here to visit Gaige often enough that his arrival would raise no alarms, he hoped, but he wasn't certain that the fireball that crossed the heavens had been sufficiently distant to have been unobserved by the citizens of the city.

"Lord Hamman Frey, Chief Astronomer, to see you, Sir," the guard informed Gaige, knocking on the door frame.

"Always welcome, of course, most revered scholar," Gaige replied, pulling open the door to let Hamman into his rooms, bowing politely to him as he did so.

"Most kind," Hamman replied with a slight twinkle in his eye.

Once the door was shut, he turned to look at Gaige with worried eyes.

"What is wrong?" the gray-eyed Scout asked.

"A fireball in the south, about a days ride by car, or three by camel and horse," Hamman replied and Gaige's eyes went opaque instantly.

"A fireball? Why tell me, rather than say... the Sultan?"

"Because you know about those cup watchers he has in his court!" Hamman spat out and Gaige nodded.

"Yes, the Diviners do seem to have a great deal of influence right now," Gaige admitted with a thoughtful expression. "You're afraid they will decide it's an omen and send us back to war or something else equally foolish."

"Precisely! Science is having a hard time fighting brilliant lights in the sky and the stars coming back from wherever they went. There is far too much 'magic' and nonsense going on just now," Hamman complained.

"It will pass, it always does," Gaige replied. "Still, I see the immediate problem."

"I was going to request that the Sultan send your regiment south to look for minerals suitable to make into lenses for the telescopes," Hamman informed him and Gaige bowed.

"I am always ready to go and do my Sultan's bidding," he replied and Hamman relaxed and nodded.

The elderly astronomer left the guard's barracks in far better humour than when he arrived.

* * *

When consciousness returned to him, Dar was in a soft place, some sort of cushioning supporting his aching frame. It was cool and dark and quiet. He sighed out, thinking about a girl he'd known years ago, then his mind snapped back into focus.

Tomoko.

He still had to find a way to extract her. He looked down at his chest and breathed out, she was still alive, that was good.

When he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by bugs. He was laying on a soft bundle of spun silk. More silk had been woven around his bicep, where he knew he had a deep cut; but it didn't hurt and the bandage wasn't bloody.

Upon seeing him open his eyes, a small swarm swooped down the hall.

"About time," mumbled a familiar voice. Guinn was sitting nearby, his head wrapped in a silky gauze, but he appeared to be fine otherwise. His gaze was sharp enough when his eyes were fixed on Dar.

"Hello Guinn, so good to see you. Did you really miss me so much, to go to all this trouble? Getting captured by Rassilon, just for me? I'm touched, but, what would your wife say?" He chuckled, sitting up and patting one of the bugs gently. "Thanks, buddy."

"Are you kidding? She doesn't know about this! When I get home, I'm going to be Arkytior- chow," he grumbled. "And chaste for the rest of my life, no doubt," he added with his best sucking-lemon face. "But never mind about all of that, we need to get back to Freeya and Tomoko." His voice was urgent.

Dar chuckled and shook his head.

"Oh please, you have that girl wrapped around your thumb, she worships the ground you walk on! You'll get cried on and scolded, and then she'll make you cookies, you lucky bastard." Dar dismissed his concerns with an airy wave. After all, he'd been confidante of both Susan and Koschei for centuries now.

"Whereas you are in a bit of a bind," Guinn sighed and pointed to his chest.

"Story of my life," Dar grumbled. "I'm always swimming through shark infested waters, trailing chum after me."

"Be nice, that's my daughter you're talking about," Guinn pointed out and Dar made a face.

"Oh thank you, that makes everything so much better," Dar retorted, his expression growing even more bitter, as he let the whole situation marinate in his mind.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 - Frying Pan to Fire

"What's your assessment of our chances?" Guinn asked.

"We're up to our arses in alligators," Dar replied and then stood up, looking around at the twisted metal that surrounded him.

"So, the data bank, what do you think is in it?" Guinn asked next, pushing himself to his feet with a groan.

"Enough information to turn Rassilon into a major power in the galaxy. All the secrets of every leader of the Federated Planets, for one. I mean the Shadow Proclamation are cops, they do what all cops do, they snoop in everybody's business, and then put it into a file somewhere."

"Ah, that file would be the room of computers that Rassilon just stole." He paused. "Well, this looks rather bad," Guinn snarked. "This was not part of my plans for today, which really included more snogging Susan and less crashing spaceships."

"Right. Because your plans have so often been jewels of simplicity and elegance," Dar snorted and rolled his eyes. "Let's hope the Doc and Koschei get here soon."

"Oh, gee thanks," Guinn snapped back. "I don't have to be out here in the middle of the desert trying to save the universe! I could be home right this minute, having sex and cookies! Are you going to help out or not?" He glowered.

Dar laughed.

"Ah, just like the old days, you and I insulting each other, as we saved each other's arses. Doesn't matter which one of you it is, it never changes." Dar shook his head with a sigh. "Come on, Old Man, keep up!" He started walking through the wreckage, "There has to be something that still works around here."

"Yeah, good luck with that. The ship is broken up into four pieces on the surface, then the bugs dug out an entire maze, and we've been dragged underground by them. Which, I must say, is certainly preferable to being on the surface of this bloody planet."

Dar noticed, as they went, that there were cloaking bugs of different types everywhere around them. These were new, not like the fireflies, but almost like dragonflies. It seemed Tomoko had been busy while he had been unconscious. This place was very heavily shielded against any sort of energy detection.

They were gathering other types of bugs as they walked. They seemed delighted to see Dar and Guinn walking. It soon became apparent, from the way that they would block off corridors or branches, that Dar and Guinn were to go down particular tunnels, and leave others alone.

He made the occasional attempt to dart in another direction, but the bugs were very fast. The first time it happened, the tunnel was filled before he could take two steps, with guards in front, pincers and stingers at the ready.

He knew that he would be herded, but he was timing the bug's reactions, checking on their intelligence and cohesion.

"Like lambs to the slaughter," he sighed out, as they were chivvied along.

The second time it happened, the cohesion and response time was identical, but this time they found their way forwards blocked as well, at least until a rather large beetle had landed on his back and settled there. It didn't hurt him, but it also didn't lower its wings.

The way before them suddenly cleared.

"Oh, well done," snarked Guinn. "The fashion accessory of the season."

"You're just jealous because you could never carry off this colour!" Dar tossed back with an easy grin.

* * *

Forgotten in the hustle and bustle of the crash, Aislynn was trapped alone in the dark.

She was still where she had been left, locked in the brig and with no communication to the bridge, she'd been caught by surprise when they'd crashed. The anti-concussion shields present in the brig section had been sufficient to prevent her from becoming a colourful splatter on the décor, but they had cut out a bit too early. She had slammed hard against the wall and bashed her head on the built-in bunk. She counted herself fortunate that she hadn't cracked any bones, though she was certain her entire side would be purple and blue by morning, if she lived that long. A cut on her head was the only other injury, fortunate indeed considering the violence of the crash.

Under command not to move, though, she had been unable to get to her feet, and was stuck lying where she was, a frozen toy cast aside by her owner.

The power knocked out by the crash, her surroundings were pitch-black. With the exception of occasional creakings or groanings of the metal frame as it continued to settle, there was no background noise at all. There was no hum of power, nor even a breath of air on her cheek, and she closed her eyes against the stillness, the darkness, and the terror she was feeling.

Panic was rising in her and to quell it, she played mathematical games with herself. Forcing herself to solve basic equations to calm herself. There was always something soothing about mathematics. Numbers were impartial and fair, they followed understandable laws, and were consistent and logical. They had never betrayed her, and never would.

She cast about for a real problem to occupy her mind with as she waited. She needed something deep and complex to keep her from losing her sanity. Her mind drifted to the Untempered Schism and the boy, Davian, who had died. She couldn't help believing that he might have lived if he had possessed the ability to regenerate. The girl, Freeya, hadn't been in the blast, but was in the same fix as her friend had been; how old was she now? Eleven? She ought to have gone to the Schism three years ago.

Aislynn didn't have much faith, at that moment, that she would get out of this alive; but nevertheless, she brought to mind the mathematics of the Schism that she had learned in Academy, and began working with them, unfolding and refolding the equations as if building an Origami figure; and working out the possibility of its future replication on Gallifrey.

She ran the equations through her mind, proofing each solution and then running variations, until she had a working model of one solution.

Then she started on the next one and the next, forcing her mind to calm reason, as she lay there, lonely and afraid. She had nothing else to hold her together now, but the dance of numbers in her mind.

* * *

Dar and Guinn were herded forwards into what was used to be the bridge area, though it now had a lot more holes in it. Panels were open and repairs were obviously under way. Insects flitted everywhere, fusing wires back together, carefully re-assembling components, and studying schematics and damage readouts. Freeya had a rather large firefly perched on her shoulder, reading with her, and her intent little face was a great relief to him.

Tomoko was there, as well. She was studying a map that the Manifold had dug into the shattered decking, as none of the monitors were working.

"Twenty-four foot scorpion-mantises? No, we are not dealing with twenty-four foot scorpion-mantises. They will likely be here come nightfall, clean out that whole pit." A large swarm of beetles and wasps rose into the air and flew away, to be replaced by a smaller swarm.

"Hello, kid, miss me?" Dar called out to Tomoko and Guinn winced at the carefully hidden pain in the Agent's emotional vortex.

Tomoko looked up. Her face held surprise, but also relief.

"You're back," she sighed out and walked over to him at once.

"Yeah, I'm like a bad penny, I keep turning up," Dar teased.

Freeya looked up and smiled, running into Guinn's arms.

"I'm so glad that you're okay," he murmured.

"I was so worried about you!" Freeya murmured, cuddled against Guinn, who was trying to figure out when he had become someone that little girls ran to instead of from. He held the child tightly to him, very glad that she was still alive. His relief was so great that he finally realized he must have come to love her at some point, when he hadn't been paying attention.

The thought startled him a bit. He was still growing used to the idea that he was even capable of love at all. He hugged her even more tightly.

"You've been gone more than a day. I didn't know where you were, or if you had been seriously injured. That is unacceptable," Tomoko scowled at Dar.

"Sorry if I worried you," he replied and smiled crookedly at her. "We got thrown pretty far, but the kids took good care of us." He patted his back beetle lightly and it made a contented clicking noise, before taking off with a loud droning noise.

Tomoko crossed her arms.

"And where exactly did you think you were going? You were to come to me first, I thought you knew that."

"I did, Tomoko, we only just woke up, and then I came straight back to you," he told her, his voice very gentle and soothing and Guinn worried that he was displaying far too much of his real feelings there.

"I…" Her hand rose, as if to touch him, but then dropped back down to her side. "I didn't sufficiently plan. The error was mine. I will think on how to correct it. This must never happen again."

"As you say," he murmured. "Now, what do you need us to do?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully and Guinn wondered again how much awareness she had of who she really was. It was obvious that the bond was working on her as well, could they use that as leverage to pry her away from Rassilon, or would it break her mind? He didn't know and he was deeply reluctant to risk Tomoko like that.

"Guinn, I want you to get the medi-bay working," Tomoko instructed, turning to eye him in concern, "Particularly the bone mender. Once you've got it running, I want you to give Freeya a proper scan. Dar, you and I are planning a raid."

"Ah Honey, you know me so well," Dar teased and Guinn turned to check Freeya's arm.

"Does it hurt?" he asked her and she shook her head.

"Nope, Tomoko gave me a painkiller thingie," she replied.

"Medi-bay is in one piece, but completely off line," Tomoko told Guinn. "We've placed the arm in a cast for now, but I want the equipment brought back online, I don't like not being able to mend injuries like this. What if Rassilon were to be injured, after all. We must be prepared."

"Yes, of course, I'll go take care of that," Guinn replied, more concerned about Freeya just then than worried about Rassilon.

"After you've finished Medi-bay, get right to work on some sort of converter system for water," she called after him, and then turned to Dar, kneeling down by the map. "We've got two main problems, here and here. The first is water… this is the nearest oasis. I suspect it will take more than a day to get any sort of converter on line, which means we need to procure some water from an outside source for the moment. It's fairly well defended, but we need that water."

Her finger moved to another point, where tiny figures had been carved out.

"This is our other problem. This is a group of soldiers approaching from the north. They'll be here within the day, if they don't change course."

"They are probably coming to investigate our rather unsubtle arrival," Dar sighed.

"How do we convince them to go home?"

"What's the tech level here?" he asked.

"I would say that they have a fairly sophisticated clockwork and steam powered tech, but not much more advanced than that."

"Right, well, we can't let them see the ship, then. We'd totally screw up their development," he pointed out.

"Oh Darginian, you never cease to amuse me," Rassilon chuckled, as he strolled into the room. "As if such ridiculous concerns mattered to us, my dear boy. We're Time Lords, we don't need to worry about lesser races."

"My Lord President," Dar replied through gritted teeth. "With all due respect, if you want to go unnoticed here, you might want to consider discretion as the better part of valour."

"No, no, you mistake me, Darginian, I plan on ruling this world. It's perfect. The tech base is low, but just about to rise, it's near to the space lanes, but uncharted, the population is used to serving a despot, and they believe in fairies and magic, it all works quite well." Rassilon beamed genially at him, like he was discussing a picnic outing.

Tomoko looked at her map, frowning thoughtfully.

"Is it your wish to conquer this world by force, or were you envisioning a more subtle takeover?"

"You should know by now, Tomoko that I use the most efficient means necessary, whatever they may be," he replied. "Right now, I think we lack the necessary requirements for force of arms, don't you? The Manifold are an army, but to use them for such a purpose would be foolish, when they are so much better suited to repairing the ship and shielding us from the other Time Lords. We must be practical, my dear girl. If we want to rule this world, we must have intelligence, we need to understand the power politics here, how the people think and how best to manipulate them. The Manifold are a bit of a blunt instrument for such a purpose."

"Also, the Manifold's numbers cannot be replenished while the retrovirus remains in effect. The number we have is the number we have," Tomoko sighed.

"Not true at all, my dear. Give me sufficient materials and the appropriate tools and I could build you another generation of them. They might have been the Rani's invention, but I know how she built them and could replicate it, if needed. Don't forget either that Guinn is valuable to Susanatrevelar and can be used to persuade her at a alter date as well. However, that is neither here nor there, first we need to deal with the soldiers, find water, and being planning," he told them, with a kind smile that warmed Tomoko through.

"Do you want them killed? The soldiers?"

"No, remember what I said, we need information. Let's capture them and ask them questions. Ah, wait... I have an even better thought. Let's be ... kind to them, hospitable. We are crashed and marooned after all, let's ask for their help. When we have learned all we can from them, we will see if they can be turned to our use," he told her, his face thoughtful.

"As you wish. I can always make an attempt to look… stranded," Tomoko said, carefully thinking the matter through.

"Use the child, children always arouse protective sympathies," Rassilon instructed.

"Understood. I'll take Freeya with me." Tomoko paused. "If we are going to make an attempt to gain their trust, I recommend removing the collar from the child. It'll blow our cover."

"An excellent point, yes, do that. I need to tend to the Singer, if you will excuse me," Rassilon replied with a gracious nod and Tomoko was silent for a while as she thought.

"Dar, please inform Guinn that Freeya will be needed to serve in…" She squinted her eyes as a beetle flitted down into the room, destroyed the little figures, and then re-carved them slightly nearer, "... Twelve hours. We'll be heading outside and have him remove the collar."

Dar looked at the beetle and then handed it some stones.

"If you carve these with the figures, you can just move them," he told it and then patted it's head. "Right," he replied to Tomoko, standing up and brushing off his pants. "I'll go tell Guinn."

Tomoko nodded, watching as a swarm of beetles returned to the mound and enlarged the boundaries of the map, carving a bit more around the edges.

* * *

Rassilon stood in front of the cell and looked in at Lady Aislynn. She was lying perfectly still in the corner and he frowned.

"You may move again and take care of your necessities," he instructed and then wandered down the corridor, while she tended to herself. It might, he realized, be seen as a courtesy, but in reality he'd been in this position before and had no desire to have bodily fluids aimed at him. Aislynn seemed far too refined for such behaviour, but one never knew.

"Are you done?" he asked.

"I am," came the quiet reply.

"Very well." He waved a hand and the door sprang open. He eyed her, his mind working as he studied her face. "You are going to be of great use to me," he mused aloud. "I know that you probably don't like or trust me, which is a pity. We had some setbacks, of course, but things are working out well right now." He gestured around at the crashed ship. "Now, you probably are wondering what I even wanted you for, eh? You may speak," he told her.

"You want me to Sing," she replied coldly. She knew full well why he had taken her.

"Well, of course. After all, your Songs are the greatest, most destructive weapons that I can access at the moment," he agreed. "I want to use them to rebuild the universe into the paradise that it ought to be." He smiled at her and she tried not to shudder. When Rassilon was being genial was when he was particularly dangerous.

"No," she replied flatly and he sighed, giving her a disappointed look.

"Of course you will, Aislynn, you'll have no choice, after all," he pointed out and she felt a sudden stab of terror as she thought about just how much she was at his mercy.

"You'll force me," she ground out and he smiled again, a thin humourless expression.

"It would be so much easier if you'd do it willingly, but either way, you'll do exactly what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. The entire rest of your life, all of your centuries of existence, will be spent in absolute obedience to me." He stepped away, his child's body so very incongruous as he spoke. "Control is so complete, that I don't even need to speak," he gestured and she twirled in response, as if she had been a marionette.

"Koschei and Guinn will cure me," she snapped back, her eyes cold, and he chuckled.

"No, I don't think so. Didn't they explain how it all works? The Nanites make permanent changes to your neural pathways. There is no cure, Aislynn. They were humouring you. Probably trying to jolly you along, make you feel better," he informed her and shook his head. "No, if you're hoping for a cure, you're hoping in vain."

Bleak despair washed through Aislynn. She'd always known that the Master was deceitful, but Guinn had seemed so very different. Likely he was different now, but the Nanites had been created at a time when he was Rassilon's puppet, as surely as she was herself. Who would know better than Rassilon the ins and outs of his creations? Guinn didn't even need to lie: she had always presumed that the effects of the Nanites would be reversed, once they were excised from her body. It had never even occurred to her to ask him about that directly.

She was determined, to the extent that she was able, not to show Rassilon how he had affected her, but he had pulled the rug from under her feet, and it was plain from his words that he could see it in her eyes, and quite probably read it in her thoughts.

"Really, those Nanites the Master developed were a huge gift to me. I can take samples from your blood and use them to make an entire army of truly obedient servants. You will be the template for dozens more just like you You should be honoured. Thanks to you, I shall finally have a workforce that I don't need to constantly cajole and appease. Listening to all the mewling and whining of people who simply refused to comprehend me was so dreadfully dull," he sighed.

"The Doctor and the others, they'll stop you," she told him and he rolled his eyes.

"I know that you're not very clever, so it's probably hard for you to understand how frustrating it is to have to constantly deal with such nonsense. A billion years old and I still have to put up with so much idiocy. You would have thought that the species would have evolved enough to keep up with me, but no, you're all so incredibly slow and stupid. I can see every banal and ridiculous thought in your head and it's so damnably dull! Now come along, I have work for you do."

"I will fight you," she told him, but much of the fire had gone out of her.

"There is is again. Small minds who just can't comprehend what I'm doing. I offer you everything, the entire universe laid out on a platter for you and you say that you 'will fight' me. Why? To what end? How is it that the limits of this flesh don't chafe you?" he demanded. "You've Sung, you've felt reality remake itself over for you, don't you ever want to see how far you can go? Don't you ever want to know what's next, what's beyond this? There are so many more dimensions that we could expand into! We could become so much more than we already are! Why would you fight all of that? You could Sing us into such knowledge!"

He was speaking with a fervent passion that nearly swayed her, but she had far too clear memories of the War, of what he led them into the last time. He was talking about Singing as though it was a crowbar to be used to pry open the universe and she knew how dangerous that could be as well. He was wrong, he had to be.

Because, if he wasn't, everything she'd ever believed, everything that had ever meant anything to her was a lie and she wasn't sure that she could survive such a loss.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - Dodging Bullets

"As always, you fail to comprehend the essence of what it is to Sing. Your calculations are based upon false premises and thus they are destined to fail," Aislynn accused him, trying to maintain her defiance, and Rassilon could barely keep his scorn in check.

"Oh, you silly creature! I fail to comprehend? I invented Singing! I invented Block Transfer Mathematics. I knew you were dim, but this goes beyond even that… Don't you understand how far below me in intellect and understanding you are? For you to chide me, for you to try to educate me, it's utterly laughable," he chortled and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "I'm a billion years old! Do you think you have ever had a thought that I didn't think first?"

"Block Transfer Mathematics is not the Song, but only what it is made of," she said, but her voice was sad and that irritated him even more. She was so incredibly predictable, so mealy-mouthed and dull, it was like talking to a wall.

"Oh, do be silent! You are boring me to tears! I've learned more about Singing and Block Transfer Mathematics than you will ever comprehend. I have gone so far beyond you that you can't even see the trail. Great Stars! Your mind is so incredibly tiny and so stuffed full of ridiculous notions," he snapped out and he let her feel the weight of his mind pushing on her own, ready to roll over her and crush her completely. Even her resulting terror was predictable and gave him no pleasure at all.

"All your life, you've abided by the rules, Aislynn. The amusing part, of course, is that I made all the rules! The entirety of Time Lord society was created by me! So, every day of your life, you've obeyed me, without even knowing it. You were obeying the rules that I created, so that it was easier for me to control you, and none of you ever figured it out! It's all you're good for, Aislynn, being a slave to whomever snaps their fingers," he told her, shaking his head in amusement. "You know, I saw you on the Station." He watched her flinch at that and knew he was close to breaking her. "I knew that they were ordering you into their beds and you were too much a coward to even throw yourself out of an airlock and end it all. You're nothing, just a toy, and the truth is that you prefer it that way. Free will would be wasted on you." He watched her mind shatter under the blows of his words with an idle interest. She wasn't even much of a challenge to destroy, really. He was so very bored by them all.

"Now, follow me and behave yourself, I need you to go to the medi-bay and check to make sure that the Master is acting in my best interest."

He led her down the hallways and into the sterile white area. It was obviously a human design, since they seemed to imagine that white was the correct colour for medical facilities. It was odd, because usually they were a fairly imaginative race, even if hopelessly primitive.

The Master was tending to the child and it was obvious that he too was emotionally attached to the little girl. Useful, Rassilon decided.

"Lady Aislynn, stand over there and keep an eye on the Master for me," Rassilon ordered. "Thank you."

"As you command," she responded, and stood in the spot indicated. He could sense her miserable, near-suicidal thoughts and felt a certain exasperation with the situation, but she was both far too valuable and far too dangerous to be allowed either her freedom or enough mental will to rebel against him. It wasn't optimal, as he preferred it when people willingly followed him, out of fear or respect, but he would simply have to make do with what he had. It was a poor craftsmen who blamed his failure on his tools, after all, even such flawed ones as these.

"Lord Rassilon," the Master turned to regard him and Rassilon was amused to see the signs of anger and hatred in his mind. Despite that though, the Master at least respected him and was too intelligent to openly defy him.

"Lord Master," he answered, nodding graciously. He knew that the other man preferred some new name now, but it was just foolishness, after all. He was what he had always been, a tool, regardless of what he might imagine.

"The Doctor is on his way, you have to know that," the Master told him in a soft voice.

"No doubt," Rassilon replied, hiding the sudden disquiet that he felt at that thought.

"He's a bit angry with you," the Master pointed out and Rassilon chuckled, though the Doctor was a formidable foe and one he had to be cautious of. The reminder was timely, he would have to make plans. The Doctor knew him far too well and was nearly as clever as he himself was, it was wise to be careful around him.

"I'm a bit angry with him, as well," he replied and then turned and contemplated Lady Aislynn for a moment. "Should my Lord Master act, plot, or even appear to be acting against me, or not obeying my explicit orders, you are to report that to me immediately, do you understand?" he asked her and she nodded. "You may move, speak, tend to your needs, even sit, if you like, but you may not leave this room unless the Master does as well, nor can you act against me in any way."

He thought over the wording of his orders, trying to see if there were any way to twist them to serve other ends than his own. He decided that it would be difficult for them to manage it and left the room, for he had no time to bandy words with his tools, there was much work to be done.

* * *

Aislynn turned to study Guinn, glad that she hadn't been ordered not to move or speak. It would have been even more humiliating if she had to stand there like a lump, just staring at him. Freeya was watching her with wide eyes, but she seemed calm now, with Guinn standing there.

"Are you okay, Lady Aislynn?" he asked, looking at her with worried eyes and she was nearly undone by his compassion. She didn't answer immediately, trying to wrestle with herself and with her own pride as well. Rassilon's words were still ringing in her ears and she found herself second-guessing every thought and action, afraid that he'd been right about her.

"A few bruises," she finally admitted. "I cut my head in the crash, but it's shallow." There was so much more to be said, but she didn't even know how to begin. "Yourself? Freeya? Have you seen the others?"

"Everyone is alive, my Lady," he told her and then came over to use a tissue regenerator on her forehead. In spite of herself, her eyes flooded with tears. It was a bit of kindness she had not expected.

"I broke my arm, but Guinn fixed it. Just as good as Susan would have," Freeya told her with a serious tone to her voice and displayed her newly-healed limb.

"I'm glad that you are feeling better," she told Freeya and then turned to look at Guinn. "Thank you," she said, somewhat unsteadily.

"For nine hundred years, I was where you are now," he told her in a voice that contained too much grief to be easily borne. "I only wish I could do more. I am just ... so very sorry."

"As am I," she said truthfully. "In a way, I am terribly jealous to see you free and yet, I am also deeply grateful."

"I'm not free though, am I?" he asked, his eyes bitter and his mouth twisted. "We're all back where we are, the only difference is that now we know what we've lost."

"Too true," she said slowly. "I'm… very tired."

"Can you move now?" Freeya asked, coming down off the table and looking up at her.

Aislynn was surprised that she would be so brave as to do so. Freeya knew she was Infected and she had been terrified before.

"You heard him," she said gently. "Though I cannot leave the room, I do have more freedom of movement than previously, so that is something." She looked carefully at Freeya. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Guinn fixed my arm, so don't worry, he'll fix you too," she assured Aislynn and patted her soothingly.

Aislynn smiled, although her eyes were stinging, as she fought back more tears.

"You've been so brave, I don't doubt that Koschei will be proud of you when he comes."

"He'll be here soon, he wouldn't leave us here, and then we'll all go home...," she paused, her words trailing off. "Well, most of us... Justin..." She fell silent, looking pale and Guinn bent down and hugged her tightly.

"We'll do everything we can," he told her, but his eyes when he looked at Aislynn were bleak. "Now, I need to finish getting the Medi-bay fixed, eh?"

* * *

"Is that any better?" the Doctor asked and Koschei shook his head.

"This blasted interference is making it impossible to track them!" he grumbled.

"Let me try something else," the Doctor suggested.

"Make it something better than the last thing you tried," Taydin growled and Rose frowned at him.

"That was not his fault!" she protested.

"You fired the weapons!" Taydin retorted.

"To be fair, there really wasn't any way for me to know that there were weapons on this ship, or that they could even do that!" the Doctor pointed out with a grimace.

"You could have asked!" Taydin argued and the Doctor looked at him in bafflement.

"Have you actually met me?" he asked, noting that everyone else was also staring at Taydin as well.

"Doc doesn't really do that," Jake pointed out, scratching his head and grinning at the Scout.

"See? Everyone knows that about me!"

Taydin dropped his head in his hands and tried not to shout, his throat was still sore from Singing for so long.

"What did I ever do to deserve this?" he groaned.

"Would you like a list?" Koschei asked with a wry smile and despite himself, Taydin chuckled.

"Very well, try not to destroy any passing comets this time, how's that?" he asked in a resigned tone and the Doctor grinned at him.

"I'll do my best!" he replied and Taydin just shrugged. The Doctor was always impossible and that's all there was to it.

* * *

Aislynn looked around the Medi- bay, before walking over to the desk and righting the chair for herself. Her eyes took in the scorched walls, the shattered decking, the torn up beds, and the tray full of surgical instruments which had been slammed across the room and embedded themselves into the bulkhead and she shook her head.

"I can't believe I am about to say this, but this looks even worse than how the Medi-bay aboard the Elysium used to look."

"Yes, but your problem back then was that you didn't have me about to repair it," he teased and went to work pulling apart the diagnostics panels and rebuilding them.

"Quite right, I should have made sure to have you aboard," she bantered, trying to keep up her spirits in front of Freeya.

"I did some rather nice designs on the Haven Class Scout Ships," Guinn added, grinning at the little girl. "The engines were Class Six, with hyperfield generators, and cross temporal folding capacity, the navigation was designed to be intuitive and accurate down to the second, and the scanners were precise enough to find a grain of sand from two hundred thousand miles away. Even I was impressed by it, which is harder than you might think it is. I have very high standards."

Freeya smiled up at him and Aislynn understood his silly nattering. He was trying to set the child at ease, to lighten the mood. Freeya was watching them and he couldn't be a pessimist while she was nearby.

Aislynn felt a wave of homesickness washing over her, but fought it off. She also knew that she couldn't be anything but cheerful and hopeful in front of the little girl.

"Well, you did a brilliant job on her, she's the best ship in the universe and I can't wait to get back to her," Aislynn told them, pretending that she expected to survive all of this, though Guinn's eyes on her were filled with his own understanding of just how badly off they were.

"I just want to go home and eat some of Susan's cookies," Freeya murmured and her eyes filled up with a sudden flow of tears.

"Me too," Guinn told her and opened his arms to her. The girl crawled into his lap, just a bit too tall and gawky at eleven to fit neatly against him, but he wrapped her up, face against her hair, and rocked her as she cried.

Aislynn watched him, wondering again how such a gentle, compassionate spirit could have resided inside that soulless monster. She knew full well what it was like to watch your body acting without your conscious ability to prevent it. She knew what it was to be forced to obey alien commands, wanting to cry out and refuse, even as you were trapped in silent complicity. She could not imagine enduring it for nine hundred years. The mere thought of that made her shudder. The knowledge that she had hundreds of years ahead of her of the same thing made her soul quail.

"Now, you go see if Tomoko needs you, okay?" Guinn told Freeya and she looked up at him and nodded. "You stay safe, be brave, and wait. Koschei and the others are coming." She nodded and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek softly, before she left the room.

Guinn looked startled, his hand pressed to his cheek as he stood there, watching her go in a sort of dazed wonderment.

"What?" Aislynn asked.

"I'm not sure that I will ever get used to being someone that a child can trust," he murmured and turned away quickly to busy himself at the repairs.

"She seems to love you," Aislynn pointed out diffidently and he nodded, his back still to her and she pretended not to see his hand brushing at his face as he worked.

"Thank you for not saying anything about what happened on Earth. She doesn't know yet, and I want to keep that from her, until this is over," he sighed out and she felt her hearts squeezing in pain as she thought of all that the child still had yet to face.

"I know. I haven't had the hearts to tell her," Aislynn replied, feeling the burden of the unspoken words weighing on her.

"Davian, the boy that died, was one of her closest friends," he explained, looking haunted. "I don't know how she would be able to stay brave and functioning, if she knew."

"She shouldn't have to," Aislynn's mood was darkening as she thought about it. "We must get her out of here somehow."

"Oh yes, that's my top priority, even before kicking Rassilon's...uh... defeating him," he finished a bit lamely, as he tried to censor his speech.

"It's all right. I have never used improper language, but I believe for Rassilon I might be tempted to indulge."

"He has that effect on people," Guinn sighed, still working diligently on the equipment. There was an awkward silence and then he glanced up at her, looking abashed.

"I hope that being stuck here with me isn't too awkward for you," he told her and she winced as he spoke. "Saying that "Well I might have amused myself by ordering you to jump up and down, but at least I never ordered you into my bed," sounds like rubbish, I know. Still, I am sorry, for all of it."

The tears overflowed and she wiped them away hastily.

"Once I was Infected," she murmured, "No one ever saw me as a person again. Particularly once the Song faded. I was just a tool, to be used as long as it was amusing, and then sent away afterwards. The girl who can't say 'no' has a great appeal to certain…" She shook her head as she saw him look at her with an anguished expression. She didn't need his pity, she needed his help.

"I always found that sort of thing incomprehensible," he admitted. "Even at my worst, an unwilling partner never appealed to me," he muttered and savagely wrenched a circuit board from its seating, setting it aside to be replaced.

"I thought I had escaped all that." She opened her eyes, but they slid away from his face, looking to one side. "And now, here I am, exactly where I was before. There has to be an end to this."

* * *

Guinn heard her words and followed her line of sight. Her gaze had fallen on one of the tables, where a syringe was visible. He saw immediately what she was thinking and and he felt suddenly sick, thinking of his Susan and how she had died at his hands.

"Couldn't you just…" She must have seen his horrified look, because she added, "On your command, I could prepare one and just… walk away. You wouldn't have to see." Her voice was low and he was fighting not to scream, or start shaking. History could not repeat again like this. He could not do it again, even if it was killing another desperate broken person, taking them out of a life that had become unbearable.

"Aislynn, I can't do that, you have to know that I can't," he whispered, deeply distressed and trying to hide just how shaken he was.

"Please," she whispered.

"I wish you wouldn't ask this of me," he choked out, looking at his hands. "I have so much blood on them already, I am not certain that I could stand any more."

"But my blood would be on my own hands, not yours," she told him and he had to suppress a sharp retort, forcing himself back to calmness.

"I'm not as prone to self-delusion as I used to be," he replied, bitterness that he had wanted to hide from her, coming out in his tone. "That lie won't work, not with you like that," he muttered, waving at her rigid figure. He would have to order her to do it and they both knew that.

"Guinn… please," she answered. "You would be doing me a great favour. I would be free. I can't live like this any more," she said, and it was the unvarnished truth. She rarely said anything so personal. She must have been low indeed to make such a confession. "It would have been better if I had burned with Gallifrey. I'm just… I'm tired. I am so very tired. Please..."

"Aislynn, Koschei and I were only a few days away from solving the Nanite problem," he told her, practically begging. "Please, let's deal with this mess, get home, and we'll have you cured in a week tops." He stood up, walked over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. "I promise you, Aislynn, we can do it, we can fix this. Please, don't give up, not yet, not when we are so damn close! All right?" He wiped her tears away, trying to find something in himself that was capable of being soothing and consoling and wishing that Susan was here instead. She was the one who knew what to say in these moments, not him.

It was a long time before Aislynn answered and her eyes were so weary and filled with despair that it hurt to keep looking at her and meeting her gaze, but he forced himself to.

"Rassilon told me that the changes made to the neural pathways by the nanites are permanent, even if they are ultimately removed." Her eyes searched his face. "Is it true?"

"Well, that's true, to a certain degree," he admitted. "The damage can be repaired, but the pathways tend to route in new patterns regardless. Susan could explain it better." He paused, searching for words. "It's like with any injury, the brain re-routes around the damaged areas."

She was silent for a long time with her eyes closed.

"He is planning to make more like me."

"More controlled Time Lords?" he asked softly, his face creasing with concern.

"Yes," she said, her voice very low.

"That's bad," he groaned. "An army of completely obedient Time Lords... He'd be very difficult to oppose. I recall how effective that strategy was when the Daleks used it against us."

"You can't let him do that, you know you can't."

"Of course we can't. The doctor wouldn't stand it for a second," he agreed with a sigh. He ran a weary hand through his thick black curls. "Why couldn't he have just stayed dead?"

She shook her head.

"Guinn… you have to promise me that you won't let this happen."

"Aislynn, there is no reason to even ask that of me. You have to know that I will oppose him with everything I have," he glowered. "What, did you think I was like an abandoned dog, merely waiting for my master's return?" he hissed. "I despise him. I would do anything to stop him from destroying this universe, the way he nearly did the other one."

"And if stopping him involves stopping me?"

"Aislynn, I have a realistic understanding of my own limitations. You could kill me with an A sharp," he pointed out with a small, grim smile.

She was silent for a while.

"I don't know what to do," she said at last. "I just… I want to live, but it's such a risk…" She stopped herself suddenly, and shook her head. "He's right… I'm a coward. Damn it all."

"Living isn't cowardly," Guinn contradicted. "Living is brave. Dying is cowardly. Taking the easy way out and letting everyone else deal with the fallout? That's not courage. Any idiot can die, but only a truly brave soul can stand against the tide and keep fighting, even when he can barely remember what he's fighting for."

"I can't just be... be a tool to be used for good or ill, at the whims of anyone who happens to be nearby. Surely there must be something more than that." Her eyes opened to look at him, cloudy with pain, and overflowing with tears.

"There is. I know full well what it feels like to be used that way," he pointed out. "I got free and you will too. We'll do this. If you find it hard to keep going for yourself, then try to keep going for Taydin, all right? I don't want to see what it would do to him to lose another person he cares for to die from this," Guinn told her. "You have people that care about you. Diana, the Drs. Harper, and think about Susan, all the hard work she put into saving your life. Don't throw that away!"

She nodded, although she closed her eyes and did not reopen them.

"For Taydin," she agreed, not very strongly.

"Furthermore, if you die, who knows what the Doctor would do! He could abolish the Houses and Lines, put a Tesco's in the Panopticon, make a law that the President has to wear motley, or some other foolish thing!" He gave her a gentle shake. "You owe it to future generations to stop him." He was grasping at straws, he knew, just trying to find something, anything, to get her angry and fiery again. Aislynn flaming and fierce was normal, but this gray, fragile creature scared him.

Her eyes lit for a moment and he knew that he had it. The fire, never far from the surface, still smouldered, at least a little. But its light was low, and Guinn could tell he didn't have much time. Once she had committed to the decision, it would only be a matter of waiting for the right moment to take her opportunity.

"I certainly intended to speak to him about the Houses," she murmured. "I had forgotten."

"There you see! You have things to do! You have to give him the rough side of your tongue! Make him see reason!" Guinn encouraged her.

Her eyes searched his face.

"You won't… leave me like this?" Her voice was barely audible and it was agonizing to see her reduced so, especially knowing that he was partially to blame for it all.

He looked at her for a long moment and then took a breath.

"You have my word, Aislynn, if I can't end it one way, I swear that I will end it the other," he promised, eyes sad, but serious. It would destroy him to do it. It would drive him back into the darkness again, he knew that, but he couldn't turn away from the appeal in her eyes.

She finally seemed to be comforted by his words.

"Then I will wait for you," she said, with a hint of her usual dignified air. The flame was back, flickering weakly, and he felt like he had dodged a bullet.

* * *

Gaige often felt that the truck was the finest invention any species had ever come up with. Since the alternative to riding in the truck was riding a camel, he was fairly certain that most of the other soldiers agreed with him on that point.

"We're off by two degrees," he told Rammall, pretending that he was using the map and compass, rather than simply following the Song of other Time Lords.

He was trying not to be too excited. He couldn't feel Adyra's mind ahead of him, so he wasn't certain that this was a rescue party come looking for him. Just because he couldn't think of any other reason for a bunch of Time Lords to have come to Azari Bal, didn't mean that there wasn't one. Dar's Rule 7 stated that "If shit is falling, it's going to hit the Op, no matter what."

"Right," Rammall corrected their course with the driver, also pretending that Gaige was following the map and compass. He shot a look at Gaige that was subtly enquiring and Gaige shrugged. He wasn't sure who was out there, but he knew it wasn't his wife, so he was feeling strangely wary.

The truck bounced and jolted across the rutted road, but Gaige didn't care.

It was still better than riding a camel.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 - Ghost

For the last few minutes, Guinn had been feeling something at the back of his head and now he turned abruptly from Aislynn and walked over to the window in the wall of the Medi-bay. Outside the landscape was rather monotonous and disheartening. There were hills and even a bit of a mountain off to the east, but the rest of the view was endless desert. A barren lifeless looking stretch that made him certain that fleeing on foot would end badly.

"Perhaps we'll both not be waiting very long," he told her. "I can feel another Time Lord mind nearby."

Aislynn listened carefully.

"I can hear him, too. His melody is not one with which I am familiar."

"Me neither," he replied, working through the roster of Time Lords that he'd met over the centuries. "Though, there is an echo or something, which is somehow familiar."

"I agree. I suppose we'll find out what it is soon enough."

"True," he replied, still trying to figure out what he was feeling.

* * *

Dar meanwhile had no trouble recognizing the mind that was approaching, even through all the interference the bugs were generating. He felt a surge of hope rising that he ruthlessly suppressed. This could still all go horribly wrong, after all.

Not sure that he could actually reach through the dampening bugs, he tried anyway.

/Gaige, you bastard! Get your dung-humping arse in gear, Rassilon is here and up to his old tricks!/ he sent to his old friend, hoping to hell the other could actually hear him.

He looked over at Tomoko and wondered if her buggy friends had told on him or not.

Tomoko's head snapped up suddenly. She was a much newer Time Lord and so wasn't quite as quick to realize what she was seeing.

"What are you doing?" she scowled.

"I was worried about Freeya, so I was giving Guinn a shout," he replied. "She's on her way back, he says." He knew Freeya was, because he could feel her coming closer.

"There is another Time Lord. I believe he is with those soldiers. Someone I don't know."

Dar weighed his options. He wasn't sure how much Tomoko remembered about her past just then, she seemed uncertain of things and he had no idea if a plea for Adie would work. Looking at her face, he just couldn't be sure if she could be trusted, no matter how desperately he wanted to trust her.

"He must have been stranded here," Dar replied instead and shrugged. "He's not from our group."

"That's significant," Tomoko murmured uncertainly. "Something… a stranded Time Lord, there was something about a stranded Time Lord… what was it? What was it?" Her brows were furrowed. She was concentrating fiercely, trying to remember.

"Do you remember your sisters?" he asked softly.

She was silent for a while, her eyes going back and forth.

"Rassilon. The Lens of Rassilon. There was a project, I… I don't recall much about it."

"There were seventy-four of you, all cloned off of one person, Adyra, Adie," he told her, his voice neutral.

Her eyes cleared suddenly.

"The Arkytior, yes, Rassilon wished to have the power of the Arkytior. We will have to get it for him somehow," she looked very thoughtful.

"Do you think that would be in his best interest?" he asked next. "I suspect that it would kill him."

"Do you think so?" She mulled it over.

"From what I have gathered, the Arkytior really hates Rassilon. Given the chance, she'd fry him and stomp all over his crispy carcass," Dar replied, feeling a great deal of empathy for her position on that.

"That mustn't be allowed… what is your recommendation?" It was an opening.

"You need to protect him from her, of course," he told her. "There are two conduits for the Arkytior right now, Susan and Adyra. Keep him from doing anything to make those two angry, because they have the power to destroy him," he directed.

"Yes, they will have to be placated, until they can be eliminated, and we're going to have to plan those hits very, very carefully, we can't do them right away… Yes, I agree. Very good course of action."

Dar was torn between concern and a sudden swelling of pride in Tomoko. She was thinking like an Agent now and he really found that very attractive. With an internal grimace, he fought to remember that she wasn't working for him just then.

"Yes, I would suggest that any hits on them be postponed, until you have sufficient data to be certain you succeed the first time, because there really won't be an option for a second time," he pointed out. Personally, he'd thought of at least three ways to kill them both, but just then, he didn't feel it was prudent to explain those thoughts.

"Again, agreed. How does that involve the approaching Time Lord?"

"He's Adie's bond mate, Tomoko, the one she's been looking for," he explained.

"Yes.. yes, that's right. We'll have to take him alive, unharmed, and probably unconscious."

"The Medi-bay should have the means to create a harmless tranquillizer," he told her with an approving smile.

"Yes… of course, but there is the rest of his regiment to be considered."

"They're humans, Rassilon can control their minds without half trying," he shrugged.

"Don't discount humans, they're random and there's a lot of them. Plus, we are supposed to be trying to get information from them. If this Time Lord is associated with them in a positive manner, tranquillizing him is going to detract from that goal."

"Tomoko, it's simple, just put a little in his wine, he'll seem to have gotten a bit tipsy and gone to sleep. Then you just tenderly tuck him into a bunk and chat up his friends. The trick will be making certain that they don't sense anything amiss as they come closer," Dar sighed. He knew Gaige very well and he was the last person to walk blithely into a trap, especially if his warning had gotten through, so this was all bound to go pancake-shaped at any moment. He was tap dancing on hot coals and he knew it.

"That is easily done," Tomoko directed and fireflies began zipping all over the place. "Do we go out to meet them or wait for them to come here?"

"Once they are in visible range, you can go meet them. If you head out before then, they will know that you observed them from afar and that might make them wary," he pointed out.

"I want you to come with us, as Freeya will be coming along. You are to ensure her safety."

"Very well," he agreed. "In this situation, a lone woman and child might be scared of armed soldiers, so that would make sense."

Tomoko blinked.

"Wait… what?"

"Different cultural norms, Tomoko, doesn't apply to you personally," he explained.

* * *

Far out in the desert, Gaige was sitting in the back of a rickety old truck with all the rest of his unit, wondering how he was going to handle a crashed alien spaceship, on a world that had only recently rediscovered the stars.

/Gaige, you bastard! Get your dung-humping arse in gear, Rassilon is here and up to his old tricks!/ he heard in his mind and began a running stream of visceral swearing that he really hoped wasn't actually audible.

Rassilon was not exactly Gaige's favourite person.

He'd been stranded for more than a hundred years on Azari Bal because of him, after all, separated from his bondmate, and left alone and lonely.

That Rassilon was back ought to surprise him more than it did, but he'd come to see the Ancient Time Lord Founder as a personal little dark cloud that was following him about, making his life miserable.

So, the choice was, go forward and walk into Rassilon's trap, or stop and scout, trying to see what was what.

Had he been alone, he'd have waltzed right in and trusted to his wits and skills to get him out, but, he wasn't alone.

"Captain," he called forward to the cab of the truck.

"What, Ghost?" Rammal called back.

"Caution might be in order," he suggested and the Captain gave him a look through the sliding glass door between the cab and the cargo area, where the soldiers were.

"Right. Circle round left and start scouting," Rammall replied. Gaige nodded and jumped out of the moving truck, ready to make his way towards the ship more silently.

As he did so, he engaged the skill that had originally earned him his nickname back on Gallifrey. He masked himself completely, making himself impossible to sense and rather hard even to see.

Not even Rassilon himself could feel the Ghost coming, not if Gaige didn't want him to.

* * *

Aislynn looked at Guinn, where he was lying under a piece of machinery working.

/Guinn can you contact Koschei without anyone noticing?/

/I don't know, but it's worth a try,/ Guinn replied.. /You're going to be late to the party, you damn wanker,/ he shot over to Koschei.

/Tell Dar to keep his shirt on, I am tracking you lot through a lot of bloody interference./ Koschei replied. /How is Freeya?/

/How do you think she is? Terrified and traumatized!/ Guinn snapped. / She watched Rassilon murder Justinian, after all. Now he's prancing about in the child's body, being his usual terrifying self!/

/How bad is it?/

/About our usual,/ Guinn groused and Koschei winced.

* * *

Koschei looked at Taydin.

"A lot faster, please, we are trying to avert Armageddon, after all!" His voice was tense, his hands were working as fast as he could, and the others all shot him worried glances as they flew.

* * *

/Guinn?/ Susan's mental voice seemed so very far away from him just then, so faint that he could almost not hear it at all.

/Susan,/ he reached back to her, almost against his will, not wanting her to be worried or upset, but also not able to stand being separated from her for so long.

/...well...?/ she called to him and he leaned into the distant flame of her.

/I'm fine, love,/ he told her, sending her reassurance and love.

He felt her reaching out to him, a soft kiss of thought brushing him and he smiled as he worked.

* * *

Aislynn saw the tender look on his face and suspected what was happening. She felt a slight stab of envy, but decided that it was silly, considering all that he'd suffered to get to this place.

The likelihood wasn't great that they would all survive this anyway. Perhaps she should be feeling pity, not envy just now.

* * *

Susan smiled and brought her attention back to the surgery. The spike of alarm from Guinn had distracted her and she was relieved that he was all right. Alan had needed a second surgery to finish removing the tumour, but he was already doing much better, finally able to speak and move, holding his wife and son again as they both cried.

While he'd been in recovery, three more people had approached her and she'd done two more surgeries, started gene therapy on another patient, and consulted with the King's Cross doctors on a dozen more cases. She was spending the remaining time with the children, trying to finish their healing before she woke them from their healing trances.

Now though, she was working on repairing the damage done to Allan's brain. She hoped to have him active and healthy again.

"Tie that off," she instructed the dapper little chief surgeon and he nodded.

"There now, Susana, nicely done," Professor Boma murmured and she shot him a small smile, hard to see through the surgical mask, no doubt, but the crinkling of her eyes would tell him, she knew.

"Thank you Professor," she replied and bent down again. "Here is where you can see significant damage," she told the human doctor, wielding her tissue regenerator carefully. "We need to encourage cellular regrowth here, but not too much."

The other doctor nodded, listening carefully and she continued to work, even as she was teaching.

* * *

Gaige crept around the pieces of the crashed vessel laying among the sands. It was a Shadow Proclamation Patrol Ship, one of the larger Shadow-class ships. It should have had a crew of two hundred or more.

Instead, there were bugs, silvery metallic insects, like nothing he had ever seen. All kinds of them had taken up residence in a sort of hive that they had dug out of the hillside and were busily searching out pieces of the wrecked ship and dragging them inside.

These bugs were mechanical and they were far too advanced for this world's technological level, so he knew that they had to have come on the ship. As he watched, a number of them gathered near a piece too large for any of them to manage alone and they crawled over each other, their forms merging to make a much larger bug, which handled the piece easily.

He studied them from cover for a while and then pulled a small metal bead from his pocket and chucked it over to where the bugs were working.

One of the smaller bugs spotted it, picked it up, and scurried away with it.

It brought the offering to one of the larger bugs, as did all the all of the smaller bugs. None of the metal was used until the larger bugs checked it over.

The larger bug, however, picked up the bead, put it down again, turned in several circles before turning back to the smaller bug, which picked up the bead in its mouth and began flitting around the wreckage. It was trying to fit the bead into nooks and crannies, then, dissatisfied, flitting on to the next spot.

"They're smart, but how smart," he wondered. Just to be sure, he slipped away from that position, shifting away from where he'd tossed the metal bead. Just in time, for no sooner had he moved, than several crickets landed on the ridge, checking the other side. They flitted around a few minutes, and then landed, digging around in the sand, looking for more beads.

"Interesting," he mused. Gaige ghosted along the sand dunes, circling the entire structure, until he found a hole in the tunnel wall that was unguarded. He slipped up to it, his reflective cloak making him seem like just a patch of sand and peered in.

He didn't have long to look. The bugs were hauling in pieces of the wreckage. As he watched, a large batch of beetles came with a portion of a wing flap on their backs. The bugs studding the tunnel walls made way for them, them moved back. Minutes later, part of a support strut was taken in. The volume of traffic made it difficult to remain in one position, lest something run into him, so he was forced to slip carefully through the work crews.

The flying insects were busy too, particularly the worrisome-looking wasps. While the beetles could fly, and would often come lugging bits in a rather slow and clumsy manner, the wasps zipped at their not-inconsiderable top speed, constantly in and out. Their size was concerning: as big as his hand, and with formidable-looking stingers. The beetles moved with a very low droning sound, but the wasps made a very distinctive high-pitched buzzing. The entire place reeked of oil and smoke but they seemed undeterred, streaking furiously around wherever they went.

The fireflies moved no pieces. They stayed where they were, studding the walls, seeming content just to watch, moving around as traffic dictated.

The bug directly in front of him, he was quite certain by its dish-like wings, was providing cloaking or shielding capabilities. Several firefly-looking bugs illuminated the tunnel, where scores of others were chewing up metallic wreckage... and using it to spin wire.

He slipped back and considered his options. He could sense at least six Time Lord minds inside of that structure and he was fairly sure that the really big sensation was Rassilon himself.

The bugs didn't seem hostile, but that didn't mean that they weren't. After all, Darginian's First Rule of Survival was; Paranoia is your friend. Assume everything is trying to kill you.

Darginian's Second Rule was: If it breathes wrong, kill it. If you can't kill it, disable it. Oh, what he wouldn't do for an EMP generator right about now. He thought for a while and then slipped back and away into the desert again.

He angled himself to observe the truck with Rammall, as it was approaching the downed ship.

* * *

Tomoko smiled at Freeya, who was holding Dar's hand, as they were about to exit the tunnel.

"Are you all right?"

"My arm's better," Freeya replied, shading her eyes against the fierce heat and glare of the three suns.

"Good, I knew that Guinn would be able to fix that bone-setter. Now, you know what your job is?"

"No," she replied, looking surprised that there was a job involved.

"There are soldiers outside. They probably saw us land, so we are going to go and talk to them. Your job is to stay with Dar, all right?"

"They saw us crash? Are they Search and Rescue?" she asked.

"We don't know yet, that is why we are going to go and talk to them. We think they might be."

"You're not going to let him hurt them, are you?" she asked anxiously.

"Rassilon hasn't ordered anything like that. We're going out to try and keep it that way."

"Okay," she agreed and moved to stand close to Dar.

"Good girl." She looked at Dar. "Your job is to watch out for Freeya. If they bat an eyelash, you make sure she is safe."

"What about you?" he asked softly.

"I'll be delaying them, give you cover to get out. You can take Freeya to Guinn, then come back out."

"You'll be alive though, when I come back, right?" he insisted with a frown.

"Are you kidding? Have you seen these guys? I could take out the lot of them with one hand tied behind my back."

"You don't have the slug anymore, Tomoko, just keep that in mind, healing factor is way down, okay?" he replied with a worried tone.

"Yes, good point. Thank you for reminding me. I still expect I could take the lot of them. I'll just do it cautiously."

"I would appreciate that, hate to have to train a new spider quite so soon," he teased and stepped back to guard Freeya.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 - Best Laid Plans

When they came out of the tunnel, Tomoko paused, blinking in the glaring light of the three suns, then gave Freeya a moment to adjust her own eyes. The landscape had only been improved by having the ship crash into it, she decided, it added interest.

"There they are," she said to Dar, nodding at the grouping. "Shall we?"

"You're the boss, Tomoko," Dar replied and the complete lack of irony in his voice warned her second thoughts that he was very worried about something.

She frowned at him.

"What is it?"

"The group ahead of us, what do you see?" he asked softly.

She looked at them, narrowing her eyes.

"I will tell you what I don't see… I don't see the Time Lord."

"Yeah, me neither," he sighed.

"What do you see? Anything else I should note in particular?"

"They have rifles, long-range, heavy gauge, and they move well. These are highly trained soldiers. When they shoot, they will be accurate."

"Ah," she said. "Duly noted. I'll go first. If they start shooting, you get Freeya the hell out." She headed down the hill, not going too fast, making sure the soldiers could see her coming. She paused when it became clear they had spotted her, watching to see whether they would shoot.

* * *

Dar held onto Freeya's hand.

"Stay behind me and look a bit scared," he instructed.

"That's not hard, I really am scared," she whispered back to him and they followed after Tomoko, a few paces behind, before she signalled them to stop and wait for a moment. "Where's your friend?"

"I have no idea and honestly, I won't know until he wants me to. Gaige has Perfect Shields," he explained and Freeya looked up at him in surprise.

"Really? That's so cool! I never met anyone with that before!"

"Yeah, it's a really rare ability, literally one in a billion. It makes him a damn good spy though," Dar replied.

"Can he really make people just not notice him?"

"Yeah, it's like he can turn on a natural perception filter, it's eerie...wait, here they come," Dar murmured and Freeya crowded closer to him.

* * *

Tomoko went out to meet them, leaving Dar and Freeya very close to the tunnel entrance for now. She made sure that they could easily see her hands.

"Gods of River and Sand protect you," called the short, swarthy man in front. "I am Captain Rammall of the Sultan's Army. Are you in need of assistance?" He was lean and sun-browned, with lines around his face that spoke of a life lived outdoors. He had a pixie-like quality, the little man simply twinkled, but Tomoko saw how he stood, how his gun was loose in its holster and suspected that the genial elf could turn deadly in an instant.

Tomoko bowed politely. Her clothes had suffered in the crash and she knew that her burned off hair and the cuts and scratches made her look like she'd been in a fight, but she tried to look more like a victim than a soldier, though she wasn't sure how successful she was.

"My name is Tomoko. It is an honour and a privilege to meet you. We're all right, although we are short on water." The soldiers behind Captain Rammall were of mixed gender, she noted, but they were uniform in hair and eye colour. Not a blond or brunette amongst them. She wasn't sure if that was a local thing, or if the three of them were going to look incredibly alien to them or not.

"It is a desert, so we are all short on water, but it would be a joy to share ours with you," he told her with a bow that mimicked her own.

"We would be grateful. Did you come looking for us? You must have travelled a long way to get here."

"Oh yes, quite a distance, Lady Tomoko," he replied, his tongue stumbling a bit over her name. "We saw a great fire strike the sands and came to see what had happened. Were you struck by it?"

"No, not precisely… there are others in my party, I would invite a couple of them to come and meet you, if you are agreeable."

"Perhaps we should all go in out of the suns, Lady, the heat of the day is not healthy for man nor beast," he told her.

"Go where?" She asked curiously, looking around for tents or the like.

"This area is riddled with caves, Lady, well known to us, we also brought tents and the like, so we can set up camp in a trice," he told her with a genial smile.

"Caves are always interesting," Tomoko smiled. "Very well, we shall retire to your camp for now." She turned and waved at Dar and Freeya.

Dar came at her wave, with Freeya clinging to his hand. Captain Rammall thawed visibly at the sight of the child.

Freeya looked so different from the soldiers that she stood out. She had pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She was quite literally the fairest of them all, or at least of those who stood clustered here. Dar had sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes, but was rather tanned, so he blended at least a little; Tomoko's hair was dark, but her eyes were hazel, and her skin was peach toned, with no tan at all.

"Certainly we must get you in out of the suns!" he cried to Freeya and the soldiers began scurrying about, pitching what could only really be called pavilions on the sands. They set up near the mouth of a cave, using the shade from an overhanging rock to shelter them from the heat as they worked.

"I'm Freeya," she said shyly to the Captain who was not much all that much taller than she was.

"A lovely name," he assured her and with a wink pulled a candy from his pocket.

She smiled up at him and took it, after looking at Dar for permission, and Tomoko smiled at Rammall.

"Thank you," she told him. "I should very much like to make sure Freeya isn't in the sun too long."

"I have eight children of my own at home, I do understand," the Captain told her with a smile of his own.

"Eight? It sounds like a busy house," she smiled at him. "What is it like? I mean, the town? Presumably you came here from a town?"

"Of course, our home is quite charming. My wife is an excellent cook, I must say," he chuckled and patted his belly. "I have to march all day, just so I can do her meals justice!" He looked at Dar and Tomoko. "So, you two have been married a long time?"

Tomoko quietly took Dar's hand.

"It only seems like yesterday," she smiled and Dar grinned at the Captain.

"Mind you, she's a terrible cook, but she makes up for it," he teased and the Captain laughed.

"One can always hire a cook!" he agreed and ushered them into the cool interior of one of the tents.

Tomoko's eyes ran over the tent, checking it carefully, and then she made sure that Freeya was comfortable and Dar was seated where she could observe him, before taking her own place. It was no coincidence that they were seated near the tent flap.

"Oh, it is cooler in here," she beamed.

"Managing heat is our national pastime," the Captain joked and she didn't doubt that he was telling the truth.

"With three suns, I just bet it is," she agreed wholeheartedly and saw Rammall's eyebrow go up in surprise. It occurred to her that she might have slipped up a bit there. The interview was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. She knew that she was supposed to be quizzing the Captain for information, preferably without him knowing, but she was finding it to be a tricky task. She made a mental note to ask Dar for pointers later.

They whiled away the best part of an hour, with her getting little for her efforts, and she started to wonder what she was going to do next.

* * *

Gaige crawled through the dunes, moving incredibly slowly, creeping up on the entrance where he'd seen Dar leave with the other two Time Lords. He knew that he could trust Rammall to keep them busy for a while, as he scouted. Rammall hadn't reached his age or rank by telling potential enemies the directions to his city and exactly how to go about subjugating his people, after all.

He slipped past the sentinel insects with great caution and respect and went to find a place from which he could observe without being observed.

Jenny woke up, blinking in confusion, and saw Susan leaning over her.

* * *

"Where's Mummy?" she asked, feeling weak and sick. Her chest hurt, her face was sore, and she was scared.

"She and your father have gone to rescue Freeya and Justin," Susan told her and Jenny's felt a spurt of betrayal at that.

"But I want my Mummy," she wailed and Susan pulled her into an embrace, cuddling her gently.

"I know, little love, I do," she soothed. "Freeya is in terrible danger though and someone had to go rescue her."

"Where's Jamie?" she asked next, turning her head to look around her. The room was filled with beds and in them she saw her friends, lying still and silent. It scared her to see them there, looking like they were dead.

"Jamie is is fine. He woke up a while ago and Donna took him to get some food," Susan assured her and Jenny nodded.

"Grandpa, he grabbed me and I was squashed under him with Jamie and Finn," she told Susan, as memory rushed back to her. "Grandpa!" she exclaimed sitting up and feeling terribly weak, but determined to find him.

"Jenny! It's all right! He's in hospital, but he's getting better. He'll be fine!" Susan was watching her with a steady gaze and Jenny made herself relax. The fear came back then, though and she burst into tears.

"I was so scared! Tomoko was being mean!" she babbled and Susan nodded.

"It wasn't her fault, she was being controlled. Your Mum and Dad have gone to sort it," she soothed and Jenny nodded and rested her head on Susan's shoulder. She looked at all the beds and then paused.

"Where's Dave?" she asked suddenly and Susan's long silence told her everything. Jenny started crying again.

She was just turned six and everything she'd ever thought about the universe had just been destroyed.

* * *

"Status of repairs?" prompted Aislynn after a while.

"Nearly done," Guinn told her, with a slanted smile. "No, I didn't sabotage anything, because only an idiot sabotages a medi-bay when he's in love with a doctor."

"I suppose she would be upset at you for that," she mused. "After the repairs to medi-bay, then what?"

"Navigation, I think. The Manifold are doing most of the big repairs, but if we don't get the navigation computers on line, this thing will never fly anywhere. Unless he's planning to use the TARDIS for travel?" he shrugged.

"I wish we could get in to see the TARDIS," Aislynn mused. "She must be so upset."

"I know," he said looking unhappy and she recalled that the TARDIS in question had once been his.

"Tomoko, Freeya, and Dar have been gone for some time," she commented, looking worried.

"They'll be back soon, Aislynn. Dar would never let anything happen to Freeya, because he knows what I would do to him," he teased, trying to cheer her up.

"Yes, the man would be a fool," she smiled just a bit, still feeling trapped and miserable, but beginning to allow herself a touch of hope. "I am somewhat concerned that Rassilon could decide to use this world as his base of operations."

"It would be in keeping with his usual mode of operations," Guinn conceded with a frown.

"What can we do?" Aislynn asked, looking distressed.

"Be patient and survive," he told her. "I cannot do anything against Rassilon, you know that. Even if I could, I couldn't tell you about it. You'd have to report it to him."

"Yes, I suppose that's true," she agreed, but she was not at all pleased with the reminder that she wasn't able to help at all. Aislynn took a breath and looked away for a moment. "Guinn… I am so very sorry… about earlier. It was unlike me and it was unfair to ask of you. I don't know what I was thinking. Please accept my apologies."

"I can't accept them, when you have nothing to apologize for," he told her, with a shake of his head. "You have never done anything to lessen my respect for you." The last part he mumbled a bit, ducking back under a console, a bit embarrassed to be quite so effusive.

She smiled a little more, feeling a sudden warmth for him that would have shocked her completely a few short months ago.

"Your courage throughout this whole ordeal has done you credit. It has certainly been greater than my own," she responded, but then fell silent. "He's coming, I think… Rassilon." Guinn nodded and fell silent, working diligently as the ten year old boy walked into the room.

"Well, has he been behaving himself, Aislynn, tell the truth!" Rassilon requested in tone of amused condescension.

"Repairs are proceeding as planned," Aislynn responded. "His behaviour has been exemplary," she said with dignity.

"Have you two been plotting against me while I was gone, tell me the truth," he asked next.

"No," she responded. After all, Guinn had known that he couldn't do any plotting in front of her.

"You are forbidden to act against me in any way," Rassilon commanded. "An order that cannot be superseded by anyone else, of any rank or house. Do you understand?"

"I understand," she said obediently, but then leaned forwards just a bit, her green eyes very sharp. "That's what makes it interesting… don't you think?"

Rassilon laughed indulgently, as though he had been threatened by a small child.

"Now, now, I still find you useful, don't make me order you to walk out into that desert and keep walking, until you are dead of thirst and hunger. I doubt that you would enjoy the experience," he warned, his eyes hardening at the last bit. "Don't try me, Aislynn, I broke you once and I won't hesitate to do so again."

Aislynn shuddered at the horrible images in her head.

"By the time that order comes…" she looked away from him, but thoughtfully, as listening to something that only she could hear, "I think it will be far too late."

"Oh, Aislynn. You really just don't understand do you? I am Rassilon, not some silly child. You have about as much hope of defeating me, as you do of flying through time without a TARDIS," he told her with a tone of bored contempt and then he walked over to where Guinn was working and eyed his efforts.

"It's nearly finished," Guinn told him, head down so he wouldn't have to look at Justinian's face.

"You, at least know not to cross me, Lord Master. If you do forget your earlier lessons, perhaps it would be wise for you to remember that you are still wired up with my controls," Rassilon informed him and patted his head gently, like he was a pet dog.

"I haven't forgotten," Guinn answered back, trying to speak around the sudden obstruction in his throat.

"Very good," Rassilon agreed, put his hands behind his back, turned and walked out of the room.

"Controls?" Aislynn asked him and he peeled back his sleeve to show the thin lines of old scars.

"He had me fitted out with neural impulse generators that are laid across every major neural pathway. He presses a button and they activate my pain centres. It feels rather like being doused in petrol and set on fire, only you never lose sensation," he informed her in clipped tones.

Aislynn's eyes were very sad.

"I am sorry," she said. "I… always thought that sort of thing was limited to control collars and the like. I wonder if… a button, you say?" She looked very thoughtful.

"Don't Aislynn, he'll kill you without a thought. Let's try to survive this, shall we?" he said with a dry tone.

"He's going to do that anyway and I hate leaving you like that."

"Eventually Koschei and I can remove them, he got his out, after all," he informed her. "I just don't want you doing anything to get yourself killed before we're rescued." She frowned, but reluctantly nodded.

"I would never Sing for an unwilling recipient. I will respect your wishes in the matter."

"Thank you," he replied. "Now, let's finish this up and then leap to obey our most puissant overlord, shall we?" he suggested in deeply ironic tones.

"I always do," she said dryly.

"We'll just have to fix that," he retorted and then bowed formally and extended his arm to her. "Would you be so kind as to accompany me, Lady Aislynn?" he asked.

She smiled at him and laid her hand delicately on his arm.

"As you wish," she said simply.

He escorted her as though they were off to a cotillion, rather than dancing to the piping of a madman and Aislynn straightened her back and raised her head, determined that, no matter what happened, she would meet it with dignity and honour.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N - I miscounted and uploaded the wrong Chapter 12. I apologize for that. I have re-posted 12 and the story should make more sense now. :)

Chapter 17 - Running Out of Time

"Well?" the Doctor asked and Koschei looked at him with an exasperated expression.

"For the last time, Theta, I'm working on it!" Koschei snapped at him and went back under the console.

Rose manoeuvred her husband away from where Koschei was working.

"She suffered a lot, some of her repairs are very new," Taydin excused the Elysium.

"She'd be fine, Taydin, if a certain someone didn't insist on trying to muck about with her!" Koschei retorted, with another irritable look at the Doctor.

"I was adjusting the resolution, not 'mucking about'!" the Doctor protested.

"Adjusting the resolution of what?" Diana asked him. "I mean, the holographic monitors are all mega-pixelly and stuff."

"I was trying to make the sensors more sensitive to those particular emissions," the Doctor explained.

"They were fine!" Koschei replied. "Now they won't work at all!" He made some more grumbling noises and there was some banging and crashing from underneath.

"Will we be able to follow them still?" Adyra asked.

"Yes, eventually, once Koschei fixes this," Taydin assured her with a smile. Rose had noticed that he was paternally protective of Adie, but then, so was Farian, the Doctor, and most of the other older men around. There was something sweet and appealing about her, that made them want to lay cloaks across puddles for her.

"I'm almost done," Koschei replied and then a moment later, crawled out. "It's fixed. Now, if we can avoid any other problems, can we please go rescue everyone, because I really want to finally be able to strangle Rassilon, like I've always wanted to."

"Not if he's in Justinian's body," Rose pointed out.

"So, we evict him and then we strangle him."

"That's an interesting question," the Doctor muttered.

"Just because it's never been done before, doesn't mean we can't do it," Koschei sighed.

"Can you Sing at him?" Diana asked Taydin. She was a bit hazy about how all that stuff worked exactly, but it had looked pretty impressive back on Logopolis.

"Rassilon is a bit more powerful than I am," he replied quietly. "Also, my ability to Sing will be of little use, if he has a Singer of his own."

Diana turned to Koschei.

"Slap a wonder-gizmo on his head? A spaghetti strainer with Tesla coils?"

"I'm sure that I could whip up an entirely new invention, based on principles I noodled out five minutes ago, that would revolutionize the tech bases of a thousand worlds, but I would actually need a workshop to build it in and the Elysium has some lovely gardens, but she doesn't have what I need," Koschei sighed.

"The Elysium has a workshop! Um… well, except I suppose that Aislynn stores mostly pots and cutters and things there," she said thoughtfully.

"I will simply have to make do," he shrugged and headed off to find it.

"Twenty minutes to build a colander with Tesla coils, no problem."

Diana nodded, then turned back to Taydin.

"Okay, so, Koschei does the strainer thing. We land, jump on Aislynn, and duct-tape her mouth. Then we distract Rassilon somehow, and you Sing at him."

"And here I thought I was the worst planner in history," the Doctor teased.

"Nope, Diana has just managed to oust you there," Rose grinned at Diana.

"Hey! Give me a break! I am coming up with a plan that does not involve the lucky sand gun! I thought you would have been pleased!" Diana snarked back.

"Oh, I am! I am very pleased! Though in this instance the lucky sand gun is fine by me," the Doctor grumbled. "Rassilon needs to be made back into a ghost again. We can't let him go out and do to this universe what he did to the other one. However, I think we need a slightly better plan than that one."

"Your usual plan then?" Jake snarked with a small smile and the Doctor frowned at him. "Wing it and hope something turns up?"

"That is not my usual plan!" the Doctor pouted.

"Oh yes it is," Rose disagreed. "However, it really does seem to work well for him."

"I'm perfectly happy with winging it. That's worked well for me too, to be honest," Diana agreed.

"Well, then, we have our plan!" the Doctor told her with a wink.

"Great! I'll get the duct tape!"

The Doctor and Rose looked at her, then at each other, and then back at Diana. Rose was fairly certain that Diana was joking, but she couldn't be sure.

Diana winked and Rose grinned at her.

* * *

As promised, the Elysium did indeed have a workshop. It was nice and neat and clearly owned by someone who did not indulge in mechanical engineering. Most of the materials immediately available were clearly meant for gardening.

However, the tools and machinery that had been originally installed were still present. Each were carefully covered in neat tarps, and when Koschei pulled the tarps off, he found that each one had its maintenance manual attached, next to a screen marking the most recent maintenance dates, updated annually, just as recommended by the manufacturers. The maintenance wasn't much, straight off of the checklists in the manuals, but it did mean that all of the machinery was in working condition.

Koschei found himself smiling a bit, as he started turning on the various devices. He did like a tidy-minded individual.

* * *

Tomoko was watching the Captain over her tin cup of water, listening to his stories of his children. She was obviously enjoying the stories, while Dar was mostly enjoying the deftness with which Rammall turned aside her clumsy probes.

Freeya was shyly sitting beside Rammall, listening to his stories as well, a smile on her face.

"I like your wife, she sounds really nice," Freeya told him sadly.

"Your mother seems nice though," Rammall replied, gesturing at Tomoko and Freeya shook her head.

"She's nice, but she's not my mother," Freeya told him. "I'm an orphan. My Mummy and Daddy died in the War."

"We're taking care of her," Dar explained and saw the sharp look Rammall gave them both. He gathered Freeya into his lap and she snuggled against him, her head on his shoulder. Dar tried not to look like someone who'd take advantage of a child. He suspected that Rammall would disembowel anyone who tried something like that around him.

Freeya's legs dangled down and it struck Dar that she was nearly twelve now. She was growing so fast. He wondered what they were going to do about that. With no Untempered Schism for the children of Gallifrey to stand before, how were they going to trigger the transformation into Time Lords?

Tomoko's head snapped up suddenly, her eyes sharpening, as she scrambled to her feet, listening to something only she could hear.

"Dar, protect Freeya," she rapped out and then turned to the Captain, replacing the precious water into the Thermos and closing the lid carefully. "Captain Rammall. I have truly enjoyed your hospitality. I am so very sorry for what has to happen now.

There was an ominous, enormous buzzing noise, coming in fast, and then everything was in motion.

Rammall and his soldiers ran out of the tent and Tomoko turned to Dar with blazing eyes and an expression that did not belong to her.

"Stay here," she commanded. "Freeya, nothing will harm you in this tent. You stay close to Dar, be good, and do whatever he says, all right?"

Freeya nodded, clutching Dar's hand, her eyes filling with tears.

"You're not going to kill them are you?" she begged and Tomoko shook her head and headed outside of the tent.

Dar pulled Freeya to the centre of the tent and pushed her under the table. It was a flimsy wooden structure with fold up legs, but it was the only shelter they had. He ran to the opening, saw the sky darkening with the Manifold and quickly closed the tent flap, tying it shut, and feeling foolish as he did so. It wasn't likely that canvas was going to stop them, but it was all he could do.

One of the soldiers had left a knife behind and he picked it up, testing the heft and weight of it in his hand. He stood beside the table, the knife in his hand, and knew it was a forlorn hope that he could actually defend the child from whatever Rassilon had planned.

The air filled with an eerie buzzing all around, he could hear the Manifold, some of them clacking and whirring as they moved, others whizzing by, or hopping with thudding noises through the sand.

Some of them came within inches of the tent, but the cloth walls were never even scratched, that he could tell. He could see shadows sometimes on the tent walls, but nothing else. In the very beginning there were a lot of gunshots, but those stopped quickly.

Then the sounds began to die away and only the soft sigh of the wind and the distant cry of a hunting bird broke the eerie silence.

"Is it over?" Freeya asked, crawling out from under the table.

"Yeah," Dar told her. "It seems to be. Stay here a moment."

He crept to the tent flap, undoing it carefully and peeked out, fearful that he'd have to find some way to get Freeya through the slaughtered corpses of the soldiers, but the entire camp was simply empty.

There were poles scattered about among collapsed canvas, rifles laying here and there, and boxes that had been toppled, but no bodies, and all the supplies and materials had been stripped away and carried off.

Of Tomoko, Rammall, or any of the other soldiers, he could find no trace. Only Rammall's tent remained, standing pristine and unharmed in a sea of destruction.

Dar looked around and sighed.

"Are they dead?" Freeya asked.

"I don't think so, I think the Manifold took them away though. We're alone here," he replied and she rushed to his side, looking around at the dismantled camp in bemusement.

"We're free?" the little girl asked him in wonderment and Dar shook his head.

"Sure, if dying of thirst is freedom, kid," he replied, looking around at the wreckage. The bugs had stripped the place of anything usable.

Outside the tent, the heat was already unbearable and their skin was far too fair to stand much of the three suns' punishment. He had to get Freeya back to the wreck, where there was water and what passed for safety just now.

He knew a little something about deserts, there were always nomads, bandits, raiders, wild animals, or something else dangerous prowling the wastes. One man and a little girl didn't stand a chance out here.

With a grimace he lifted Freeya onto his back and headed towards the downed craft. If he could only find a usable weapon, maybe he could do something.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - The Cavalry Arrives

Gaige lay perfectly still amongst the rocks, as his friends were marched past his position. They were more or less healthy, though every last one of them had been stripped of anything metal. The majority had been at least partially cocooned. They were brought around the corner and it was as good a chance as any to follow them and probably the best he would get.

He slipped after them silently, watching his back-trail to make sure none of the bugs sneaked up on him.

* * *

Tomoko, having captured her prisoners, was busy checking them over in the aftermath of the battle. She had a first-aid kit and scanned each and every soldier to ensure that there were no casualties and no bad injuries. Most of them were thoroughly cocooned. Many had been set so that they were laying on the ground, bound with webbing to prevent them from moving.

The last person she checked was Captain Rammall. She spent a moment pointing the tissue regenerator at the cut over his eyebrow.

"Here, this will take care of that cut. You should know that none of your people are injured," she told him. "You're all in fine shape."

"Yet, after we offered you hospitality, you have attacked us?" Rammall asked her. "We came to help."

"I know," Tomoko nodded. "I know it isn't worth much, but I really am sorry. Rassilon commanded it and so it had to be."

"He is your Chieftain?" Rammall asked.

Tomoko had a sudden sense of confusion as she tried to think of what her relationship was to Rassilon.

"He's… my…" but she trailed off, her eyebrows furrowing, then she shook her head. "He is my leader. He's the… Lord President. He has ordered your capture and so I have brought you to him. He'll see you by and by, I would expect."

"I understand the demands of duty, Lady, but I have always believed that you must choose your loyalties carefully, to keep your honour untarnished," Rammall told her with a shake of his head.

She stared at him for a long moment, trying to understand what he was saying, while her second thoughts were screaming in the back of her head. Something clicked over and the second thoughts became fainter and her Purpose returned to her.

"What I choose is irrelevant. Rassilon is the Lord President. What he orders must be," she finally replied and Rammall looked at her, his gaze shuttered now, as though he had seen something that he didn't much like.

"Very well," he told her and fell silent.

She was silent for a moment, her thoughts shifting about oddly, her head jerking a bit, as if struggling with a bothersome fly, but then her mind cleared again.

"At any rate, I thought that I would try to make you comfortable until Rassilon can come to speak with you," she said. "I'd like to remove the cocoons, but I want your word that you won't try any mischief when I do."

"A soldier's first duty when captured is to try to escape," he told her gently.

"Of course it is! My job, however, is to keep you here… actually, their job is to keep you here," she indicated the Manifold, perched on various surfaces. "They are very efficient… I think they'll suffice," she said thoughtfully. "I'll try and scrounge up some rations or something for you, we're running very low on supplies just now."

"There was plenty in our truck," he pointed out. "Your djinni took it all."

Tomoko smiled, suddenly happy again.

"Ha, so they did! You brought far more than we need…" She turned to the nearest large firefly, gesturing at it as it glowed back at her. "They'll bring up a bunch," she smiled at him after a moment. "That should get it sorted, until you can speak with Rassilon."

"I await his pleasure," Rammall replied with an ironic lift of his brow.

"Listen… try not to worry, all right? Just be nice to Rassilon when he comes, answer his questions, and I'll get you and your men back home."

"My dear child," he told her. "Don't you understand? We cannot answer his questions without endangering our spouses and children." He looked at her sadly. "Best to kill us quickly and be done."

"No," Tomoko scowled at him. "I don't want any more casualties. We're going to convince him that you are… are clever and… and useful, and you are going to live. Your men are going to live." She was determined that this man's wife shouldn't become a widow. She wasn't sure why, but that would be bad, she knew it somewhere deep inside.

"You're a good child," he told her. "It's a pity that the world isn't always easy on good people."

"You can say that again," Tomoko snarked and then frowned, wondering why she'd said that.

Which is when the whirring, grinding sound of a TARDIS materializing sounded through the tunnels and halls.

* * *

Guinn looked up from his efforts and eyed Aislynn, wondering what to do, when the comm system came on and Rassilon's voice snapped out.

"Aislynn, go immediately to where that ship is landing and keep them busy. Fight them! " he ordered and Aislynn marched jerkily from the room. "Lord Master, I want you to go assist Tomoko and please note that I have my finger on the button and will be watching you."

Guinn stood, brushed off his trousers and went to find Tomoko.

Moments later, he heard a sound that he had not heard since the war. Aislynn had begun Singing somewhere. He had forgotten the clear, sweet sound of her voice, and paused for a moment to listen, before shaking his head and doubling his pace. He was running out of time.

* * *

"Guinn!" Tomoko called as he came running. She was strangely relieved to see him.

"They're landing in the Hangar Area, Aislynn is Singing," he reported. "Where are Dar and Freeya?"

"They are making their way back from the camp, but they won't be helpful in this fight," she replied, hopeful that Dar could be spared what was coming.

"Nothing will be helpful in this fight," Guinn grumbled and she wondered if maybe he was being disloyal to Rassilon when he continued speaking. "Two Singers, Tomoko, it's all going to be between them. We will have very little to do, but stay out of their way." Tomoko nodded, realizing that he was still helping her, so everything would be all right.

"I have to get in there though, stop the others, make sure that they can't get to Rassilon," she replied and he looked at her with an expression of deep concern.

"Daughter, be very careful," he told her softly and she felt suddenly warm and happy from that one word alone. "Stay away from where the two Songs intersect, all right? That's the most dangerous area. Stay out of their radius completely though, if you can." He pulled her into an embrace and hugged her and Tomoko returned it, holding on to him with a sudden feeling of grief in her hearts.

"I love you, Father," she whispered to him and he squeezed her again.

"I love you too, Daughter," he replied and then released her, face anguished. "Please, be careful. You are of no use to Rassilon dead." She nodded, feeling a weight lifted from her. He was right, of course, dead, she couldn't protect and serve Rassilon. That was important.

With that, she turned and ran into the Hangar, ready to protect Rassilon... and Guinn. She smiled and ran faster.

* * *

Koschei clung to the console, as the Elysium bucked and whined. She was fighting the translation, fighting the materialization, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he knew why. She was like a wild horse and he was holding on for dear life, hoping she wouldn't buck them out of the timestream completely. Taydin was murmuring soothing sounds to her, trying to calm her, to bring her in, but it was rough on them all.

Rose leaned forwards and brushed her fingertips over the column, her eyes leaking a golden hue that he found startlingly familiar. The Elysium shook and made one last awful screech, but finally came to rest. Taydin flipped on the screen and they saw that they were within the remnants of the Valour's docking bay.

It was bent, twisted, and girders were tossed about, so something rather drastic had happened, Koschei reasoned. He looked over at the Doctor and received an equally grim return look.

"What was that?" Adie said rather nervously. "That was a strange landing, is that normal?"

"There's something wrong," the Doctor said with a frown.

"Yes, that was obvious," Taydin muttered. "The probability waves are already fluctuating."

"Bugger," Koschei sighed. He'd been right about the cause, but he felt no satisfaction at that. He'd have much rather been wrong.

On the screen, Aislynn could be seen, standing in the centre of the half-destroyed hangar, Singing, waves of force visible to his Time Lord senses flowing out of her.

Behind her, Tomoko stepped into the area, dressed in a Shadow Proclamation uniform, with the rank badges removed, and walking with purpose towards the TARDIS.

"Aislynn's Singing," Adie looked a little scared. "I've never heard a Singer before."

"That's not our only problem," Diana said, and abruptly thrust something at Adie. "Here, it's lucky, don't let Tomoko have it."

Without another word she had a Stun stick in her hand and was out the door.

Tomoko reacted to the door opening by charging the TARDIS and Diana met her halfway. Tomoko had something in her hand, a stubby hilt. It didn't look as if there was a blade at all; but she swung it hard and Diana scrambled to get out of the way, ducking around a column. A moment later the column toppled over, cut neatly in two. Tomoko hadn't even slowed down.

Adie was now looking even more nervous than she had before.

"What is that, exactly, that Tomoko is fighting with?"

"Charged particle blade," said the Doctor. "Line of atoms maybe three molecules wide. It will cut through anything." He looked disapproving.

"Exciting," said Adie with a rather unhappy expression.

"Bloody dangerous, for the user as well," Koschei grumbled.

"If you all will excuse me," Taydin murmured and stepped out of the TARDIS.

Rose looked at the Doctor.

"Things are about to get very bad. I think we need to move the TARDIS," she told him and the others nodded.

Adie's eyes were round.

"It's a Singer's Battle," she whispered as she worked her board. "Can we… I don't know, do something?"

"Yes, we can get the heck out of their way," Koschei replied.

"What about Diana!" Jake protested.

"We'll come back," the Doctor promised, "But, if we want a functioning TARDIS at the end of this, we need to move her and now!"

"There's an opening about twenty yards away; it might make a good landing spot," added Adie.

"We need to be farther than that!" Rose replied and Koschei could see the calculations she was making in her head. "At least five hundred meters!"

"Um… we'll be off the ship but it looks like there is a cave system… here then?"

"Are those life-sign readings?" Koschei asked, pointing at a blip on the sensors.

"Yes, I think so. They look human!" Adie replied.

"What are humans doing here?" Koschei mused.

"Maybe we should ask them?" the Doctor suggested.

"Let's put down next to them, see what is up," Rose suggested.

"Maybe they are from the ship? No, wait, Tomoko sent away the crew in pods."

"They could be locals," the Doctor muttered. "Where are we anyway?"

"Not a clue," Koschei admitted.

"Um… desert, it looks like, I don't scan a lot of water."

"Fine, let's go over to the humans and ask them and then we'll know!"the Doctor pointed out.

"And mention in passing that their cave system could collapse and maybe they might want to think about moving. Quickly." Adie thumbed the materialization switches and for a moment resembled the Doctor so strongly it was almost indecent.

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" the Doctor approved and they all moved to fly the rather shaky TARDIS.

* * *

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and peered around the gloomy caverns with a frown, looking for the life signs that they had picked up.

A cave again, she sighed to herself. Why was it that so often they landed in caves, sewers, or steam tunnels? Why did TARDIS seem to have a natural affinity for these things? She recalled the underground cavern where they had found the corals and rolled her eyes. It was silly that she hadn't thought of that before.

To one side, she saw something move and heard a muffled noise. She bent over a bit, squinting as she tried to see in the gloom.

"Allo?" she called.

"Helf!" a voice called back somewhat indistinctly.

She stepped forwards and almost tripped over a mummified figure on the floor.

"Doctor! I found them! There are people in... cocoons!" she shouted back to the TARDIS. One of the wrapped up folk looked at her in appeal and she bent closer. "It's all right, we'll get you out." She studied the swarthy face with the black eyes and a moustache in the same colour and wondered who he was.

"Well, we better get them out of cocoons, before this whole place comes down around us!" the Doctor replied and the rest of the group came tumbling out of the TARDIS, sonics in hand.

"All right, the 'moving quickly' plan is not going to work," said Adie, and knelt down to one of the wrapped forms. "Here, let's get you out of this." she looked up at Rose and the others. "Listen, you need to deal with what is happening; I can get everyone loose. Better book before things unravel even further."

"Can you get them all out and into the TARDIS?" Koschei asked her, looked worried.

"Won't that expose them to advanced technology," Jake pointed out and the Doctor looked at him with a sigh.

"I think we're a little bit beyond that now," he informed them all, pointing back at where the Elysium hung a few inches above the floor, looking like a silver sphere with no visible means of support. "She was nervous and did not stick the landing."

"Poor TARDIS," Rose soothed.

"Don't worry," Adie said to Koschei, "I can get them cut out. Go and get Dar, Guinn, and Freeya. We'll be fine."

"All right, if you're sure," he replied and the Doctor nodded at her.

"Take good care of them," he told her and then the rest of them all scampered off to head back towards where Aislynn and Taydin were ripping apart the universe.

* * *

Rammall was lying on his back with Sergeant Djelly's elbow in his ribs and trying to look slightly less like a trussed pig. The pale, rather ill-looking woman, with her hair of golden strands and eyes like sapphires was bending over him and he was startled that her skin was so pale that he could see the pink tinge of her flush quite clearly as she worked.

She managed to get his mouth free.

"Greetings, Pale Lady," he said, as she continued to work at getting him free.

The woman smiled at him.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll get you free. It will probably take a minute. My name is Adie."

"Are you kin to the child Freeya?" he asked, since she was the only other white faced person he'd ever seen with such hair and eyes.

"Freeya! Have you seen her? Is she all right? We're all scared sick for her."

"She was safe when last I heard, the man Dar was guarding her," he replied. "I am Captain Rammall, by the way. Pray excuse my poor manners."

"Yeah, sorry, we're a bit tied up," Djelly chuckled from underneath him.

"Sorry about that," Adie said. "I am so glad that Freeya and Dar are together; Dar will never let anything hurt her. Was he all right?"

"Indeed, he seemed so, before we were captured. After that, I have little knowledge, I'm afraid. Are you from Azari Bal?" he enquired, as the possibility that they could be Gaige's people occurred to him.

"Azari Bal!" Adie was so shocked that she forgot to cut for a moment. "Is this… this is Azari Bal?"

"Of course it is," Djelly groused. "Where else would it be?"

"Have you ever seen people like that on Azari Bal?" Sgt. Matari said.

"Yes, Gaige looks much the same, as you would know, had you ever seen him bathing," Djelly shot back and Rammall looked at the pale woman and saw tears in her eyes.

Her face lit with a joyful expression that startled him. He looked at her and had a sudden sense of wonderment. Could this be the woman that his old friend had spoken of, the one too far from him?

If so, he hoped that they all lived long enough to see these two together.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19 - From Bad to Worse

Adie's eyes flooded with tears suddenly and she scrubbed at her face with haste.

"You… you know Gaige?" She quickly resumed her forgotten cutting. She'd gotten barely through the first strands and it was slow going. The other soldiers were watching her in concern and she felt a bit exposed with all those fierce dark eyes on her.

"Of course, he's our unit's best scout," one of the female soldiers told her with a sudden grin. "He can pass unseen, even in a crowd!"

"He once sneaked into a Chieftain's tent and stole her knickers!" another soldier told her.

"It was not her knickers!" the Captain snapped back. "He's a gentleman! It was her weapon."

"Dar told me that he has…" Adie began but abruptly cut off as an ominous cracking noise came from the direction of the ceiling. "That's not good," she turned her attention back to Rammall and tried to cut faster.

"Perhaps if you freed the others first. The bugs were most thorough with mine, more so than theirs," Rammall suggested, eyeing the crack with unease.

"That doesn't make any…" Adie moved through the group, looking for lighter cocoons."No, wait, let me guess, are you the leader of this group?"

"I am the Captain, so yes, of course," he replied.

"At least he likes to think so," Djelly shot back and Rammall rolled a bit so that he was squashing him some.

"Rassilon must think so too," added Adie. "That is why they bound your mouth, so you couldn't give orders to the others… oh, yes, this cocoon is much thinner."

* * *

"It was not this Rassilon who ordered us so bound, but the Lady Tomoko, who had charge of us," Rammall told her, feeling a certain sorrow as he spoke. He was confused by the girl, why did she follow someone so unworthy when she was so obviously kind? What sort of spell had he cast on her?

"You've seen Tomoko?" Adie's voice was almost a whisper. "How was she? I mean, was she…" but her voice trailed away. She was struggling for words.

"She's under some sort of spell," Djelly spat out. "One minute kind and sweet, the next dancing to orders we can't hear."

"She could just be female though," one of the male soldiers suggested, only to have several of the female ones elbow him.

"That's my sister," Adie scowled at him momentarily, "And she nearly died. She was kidnapped out of her own bed, in hospital, if you must know. Right out from under the noses of the doctors… damn Rassilon anyway," she turned to the cocoon with greater fervour, with the result that it came free sooner than it might otherwise have done.

"He does not seem an honourable leader," Rammall replied cautiously, not sure where she stood exactly.

"He's not my leader!" she insisted and Rammall nodded his understanding. "I wouldn't follow someone who blew up children!" spat Adie, moving onto the next cocoon. "I mean, Davian was like fourteen, Jamie's all black and blue and he's only two years old, we don't even know if the other children are going to…" but her voice failed again. The cocoon seemed to cut away under her anger like a banana peel, even when she had to stop and scrub her eyes again.

"I'm so sorry," Rammall said and she could see his own anger kindling. "I have eight of my own and know full well the need to protect and care for one's children."

"Oh, they're not my children, they're my cousins. I never had the chance to get married, although… huh." She looked thoughtful.

"At your age?" one of the soldiers asked. "You're far too young to wed!"

The ceiling began to shake again, dust sifting down through widening cracks and conversation was halted as she frantically worked to free them.

"This is not going fast enough… start cutting each other free," she told the soldiers. "Your blades aren't going to make a dent on the thick cocoons, but you can cut the thinner threads… try to be quick, eh?" She returned to Rammall's cocoon and tried to slice it apart

* * *

Adrya was trying to cut through more of the thick strands of cocoon when she heard the next rumble through the ground and, alarmingly, echoing even more strongly through the stone ceiling. She looked up to see cracks racing along the stone. She didn't have to ask what must be happening; she could feel the destabilization of reality in her eardrums. The fact that the battle between the two Singers was reverberating, even so far away, was a very bad sign. She couldn't imagine what things must be like in the other room.

The six soldiers she'd already freed were working hard as well, trying to cut each other loose. Unfortunately, the strands spun by the Manifold were strong and a bit slippery. They notched even the toughest blades and you had to be careful not to let the knife slide out of control. Even her sonic was slow, sputtering and complaining as she worked.

In spite of her best efforts, the good Captain was still solidly bound from ankles to elbows.

"Try not to worry," she smiled at Rammall, but a second rumble sounded on the heels of her words. A sharp jolt sent everyone sprawling and Adie was knocked over, scraping her palms and cheek on the rough flooring.

Something moved in the shadows, something that gleamed silver. Adie froze in terror as she spotted the cricket there. It seemed to be agitated by the vibrations and jumped, chirping in alarm. She stayed still, but it made no move against her. It hopped over to Rammal and perched on his chest, eyeing her.

There was another rumble and the cricket chirped urgently at her.

"Oh! You want me to free them?" Adie asked it and it cocked it's tiny head at her and chirped again, leaning down to chew on a strand and releasing a section of the cocoon. Adie was baffled as to why this little Manifold cricket was assisting her, but just shook her head and got back to work.

The soldiers were just starting to get back to their feet when another, more ominous, creaking noise joined the general cacophony. Adie looked up, staring at the ceiling in alarm. The cracks were starting to spread above her head and she watched as more fine grains of dust began to fall.

"Get to cover!" Rammall barked, but Adie threw herself on top of him from sheer instinct, shielding his body with her own, as stones thudded all around. She could hear the cries of the soldiers, as some of them were struck, followed by the cricket's sharp chirps.

After a moment, things stilled, though there were more rumblings and the air was full of dust; the entire area was on the verge of collapse.

She had just realized that she wouldn't be able to cut Rammall free in time, when there was the sound of running feet. The soldiers, much more accustomed to such things than Adie, were already scrambling, even as she was standing.

Two of them picked up Rammall, as a third, a woman with a scar across her eye, pulled Adie up. All over the cavern, the soldiers who had been freed were grabbing their buddies who couldn't yet move.

"Are you hurt?" she asked briskly.

"No, we're all right."

"We have to get to cover!"

Adie pointed at the TARDIS, rotating peacefully at the far end of the room.

"The TARDIS, get to the TARDIS!"

"We won't fit!" the woman protested.

"Trust me!"

Dark eyes regarded her for a moment and then the soldier nodded.

"You lot, move out!" Her voice rose to the ceiling and the soldiers jumped to obey, just as another shockwave rolled across the room. The ceiling was trembling; they had seconds, if that. As she was gathering them up, a swarm of Manifold rushed into the room and raced to support the ceiling. It was a great weight and there were far too few of them to keep it raised for long, so she kept hurrying the soldiers forward.

Adie skidded to a halt at the TARDIS door, unlocked it, yanked it open, and gestured them inside. They ran in through the door she was holding and she tried to count them all as they went past; how many soldiers had there been? She also tried to scan the room as they were entering; what if someone had been left behind?

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and saw that it was coming down and suddenly there was no more time to worry. Feeling like she might be mad, she gestured the Manifold bugs into the TARDIS.

"It's coming down! Get to cover!" she shouted at them and they paused, before zooming away out of the room. She darted inside, after the last soldier had entered, slamming the door behind her just as an impossible crashing noise filled the room.

A chirp in her ear made her startle. She turned to see the cricket sitting on her shoulder and looking insufferably smug.

* * *

Gaige, in the process of edging carefully through the ship, nearly gasped aloud as he felt it. Adyra! She was here! She was close by. The wound in his soul was healing and he wanted nothing more than to fall into that moment. The sounds of combat were worsening though, so he simply sent a wave of love and welcome back down the bond towards her and continued his slow, agonizing creep forward.

He felt a return wave of love and affection, also the slightly confused images of Rammall and the soldiers of his unit, huddled in a TARDIS.

/Rammall is my oldest friend here, please take care of him, love,/ he sent back, keeping the thoughts diffuse and direction-less.

/Tomoko captured him and his men. Rassilon has possessed her. I… I never thought I would get to talk to you… at least not while I was awake,/ she replied her mental voice filled with mingled joy and sorrow.

/I know, Freeya told me everything. I have to go help Dar, but as soon as we've dealt with Rassilon, I'll be back for you,/ he replied, his hearts torn between going to her right then and helping the battle against Rassilon.

/I'll be waiting… whoops, gotta run,/ she cut off contact suddenly as the TARDIS door slammed shut.

He took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand, he had a mission to achieve, after all.

* * *

Guinn stepped back away from where Tomoko was fighting Diana and Aislynn was Singing against Taydin. There was nothing he could do there, except get in the way. He stepped into the hallway and went to find Rassilon.

He tracked him down in the computer room, flipping through a few screens of data.

"The Doctor has arrived," he announced and Rassilon turned and gave him a little smile.

"You say that with such a tone of voice, like you were announcing my doom," the boy's face looked strange with so a knowing smile on it.

"That has been my experience," Guinn replied rather dryly.

"Not mine though," Rassilon shot back. "I've defeated him many times, driven him back and away from Gallifrey and I can do it again." He stood up and frowned around him. "Mind you, I am discovering that I have far fewer resources than I once had. I was hoping to have time to build up a base of operations before taking on the Doctor. I see that I made a mistake in taking the girl and the Singer. It roused his ire. I will need to fall back and regroup, I think."

"He'll never stop hunting you, as long as you live, you have to know that," Guinn pointed out and Rassilon eyed him for a while. He wondered if Rassilon could be brought to surrender. It was a slim chance, but the two Singers battling could rip this universe apart and he had to try.

"You might be right. For all that you loathe and despise me, you are often more honest with me than my other advisers, it's an interesting thing," Rassilon mused and Guinn tried not to show his extreme revulsion at being considered one of Rassilon's 'advisers'.

"I don't care if you kill me," Guinn replied, shrugging, because he really didn't, except that ... he didn't want Susan to suffer. "So, I just tell you the truth."

"Which is useful, thank you." Rassilon began pacing through the room, thinking hard.

Guinn stood there watching him, trying to think of a way to kill Rassilon without harming Justinian and feeling as though he was facing an impossible choice. To kill an eleven-year-old boy, or to let a monster go free? Could he get him to surrender? He doubted it, the narcissism of the man was too great, but he might get him to withdraw, stop the carnage out there long enough to save Aislynn at least.

"I think it would be best if you go now, Lord Master, I have to prepare myself for my confrontation with the Doctor," Rassilon told him and shooed him away.

Guinn left, feeling as though he'd failed. Rassilon wouldn't withdraw and he didn't know how to stop him.

* * *

The space was white, entirely white, for a few seconds. It wasn't a large room but it was large enough to hold them all.

"Is everyone..., " Adie started, but Rammall beat her to it.

"Sound off. you lot!"

They called out in response and it seemed that everyone was present, which was a relief to him. Adie strode forwards through them, key in hand, fitting it into a previously-invisible spot; and the heavens opened.

Rammall tried to make sense of what he was seeing and found that he lacked the understanding to do so. He felt suddenly humbled, tiny, and terribly ignorant. It was that sudden sensation of inadequacy that finally made him truly understand what Gaige had been talking about.

He was in a room with a treasure column, set with jewels. They were all staring around themselves in awe and he knew that it was that awe, that feeling of being a child amongst adults, that Gaige had been trying to protect him from. This was what could destroy his people, the sudden knowledge of how backwards and primitive they were.

"Don't worry," she smiled at him. "There are much better tools onboard, we'll get all of you cut free." She darted away, then came back with a long slim tube and began working diligently. The stubborn silver strands finally began giving way.

"It's magnificent," he told Adie humbly and she looked at him and seemed to sense some of what he was feeling.

"We have had a civilization for a billion years," she said quietly. "We were once where you are now. You'll get there, if you are left alone to do it in your own way. Your people could even build something better than we did." She looked at him with a hopeful smile and he nodded back at her.

This place of refuge had not a speck of dirt or dust to be seen. Lush plants grew everywhere, water was trickling and burbling here and there, the air was cool and smelled of blossoms and petals. Delicate insects, like multi-coloured jewels, sunned their wings, and in the distance they could hear the songs of birds. The grandest palace of the Sultan, himself, could not have compared to this place and he felt so very dirty, grubby, and ignorant there. Still, Adie's hopeful smile made him straighten up. So, he thought, might his own city right now appear to his ancestors, should they visit it, and the thought heartened him.

This was just a thing built by people, a thing that was more beautiful than his most fanciful dreams, but it was still just a thing. Everyone worked in silence for several minutes, until the last cocoon had been sliced open, and they were all free to move about.

Rammall took a breath and went to stand by Adie, as she made images dance upon the air, images that caught his attention instantly.

Outside, a battle was raging and that was something that Rammall understood quite well.

* * *

"Well, our first problem is that we are now buried and I'm not on the pilot's list," Adie muttered to herself, looking at the scans.

She looked back through the door at the airlock. The cricket was there, hopping back and forth in a sort of confused way. It had gotten as far as the airlock, but now it couldn't get inside the Elysium. She bit her lip, thinking hard, her eyes casting around the consoles, wondering what to do.

Then they fell on the sand gun, sitting where she had left it earlier in her haste to exit the craft and see to the bound soldiers.

"Huh. Diana claims that lucky sand gun is lucky, and the Doctor says it's a modified mining tool. Let's see if it can dig us out of here, we're not buried deep, we might be able to punch a hole…"

She picked it up and took it back through the airlock. The cricket jumped to her shoulder, cheeping happily.

"You do realize that you're causing us all sorts of trouble, and you're not even attacking," she scolded it, and opened the front door. The cricket's antennae sagged in response and she patted it.

A wall of stone met her gaze. Fortunately it hadn't fallen perfectly straight; there were places where they had a few inches clearance.

"Hope that's enough," she said to the cricket, and put her hand, with the sand gun, out of the doors, wedging it into a space between two of the rocks. She pulled the trigger and blew herself across the airlock, slamming hard against the wall and then landing on her tail, coughing.

The woman from earlier hauled her to her feet again.

"Are you all right?"

"Ranged digging tool," Adie coughed. "Important safety tip. Sand guns are ranged digging tools." She blinked hard. Outside the dust was settling, though no particle of it drifted into the airlock. The dust was so thick that it was hard to see, but it was already clear that there was an enormous hole where the stones had been.

"Ha," she said, "We may get out of here yet. Wait until Diana finds out. She'll say, 'Lucky sand gun is lucky.'"

"Only if we survive," Rammall told her with a cheerful smile.

"We'll survive," Adie said, checking for a moment to see if she could still feel Gaige around: he seemed to be fine, and that gave her a bit of confidence.

"Of course," Rammall told her comfortingly and patted her shoulder. She had the strong suspicion that he was teasing her, since his female sergeant was trying to hide a grin. It was the look on Matari's face that made her giggle.

"Couple more shots and I think we'll have it," she smiled at them.

"Right, everyone hide while she fires that cannon!" Rammall replied and the soldiers all dived for cover and pretended to cower, with fingers in ears.

Laughing, Adie fired the sand gun again.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 - Pancake Shaped

The Doctor, Rose, Koschei, and Jake, crept around the partially-rebuilt, crashed spaceship, ducking behind things when any of the Manifold flitted by. At the moment, while the insects seemed to be upset about something, they weren't actually attacking and the Doctor preferred it that way.

The original ship had smashed into pieces and the Manifold had dug tunnels and built passages in a somewhat haphazard manner, trying to connect all the bits and make travel between one area and another possible. It was, however, quite the maze and the erstwhile rescue party was having some trouble actually finding the hangar bay so that they could get down to the actual rescuing part of their plan.

A wasp zipped by, ducking around them, carrying a bundle of wires and the Doctor paused to watch it.

"What are they doing?" Rose asked him.

"I think they are trying to repair the ship," he told her. "I'm not complaining, but why aren't they trying to kill us? I mean, in the Loops they were quite aggressive."

Jake pulled a small EMP gun from his pack and hefted it.

"Should they attack, I've got a present for them," he informed them both and the Doctor nodded.

"Wait though, if they don't bother us, let's not bother them, okay?" he suggested and Jake smiled.

"You know me, Doc, if it's not shooting at me, or trying to eat me, it's my friend."

"Just let me get close to Aislynn and I can fix at least part of our problem," Koschei murmured, his face set and hard.

"We'll do what we can," the Doctor replied doubtfully. He had a few worries himself, after all. Not just for Aislynn, but for Justinian, Freeya, Tomoko, and the people of this world. There were a lot of lives at stake.

* * *

Guinn walked back into the Hangar Bay. In front of him, Aislynn and Taydin were warping reality between them and he stood there, watching them, as he tried to figure out what he could do. He could see the stresses being laid on this universe, the way probability was being bent into a pretzel by their combined power, as they were staining against each others whipped around the two Singers, Aislynn's tattered robes flapping behind her like azure wings, her body outlined in light. Her face was placid, but he could feel her anguished denial as she fought her controls.

Taydin was like a statue, his face was stony, his body rigid, as he poured out his strength, his life into stopping Aislynn.

It was agonizing to watch.

He turned his head and saw his daughters, Tomoko and Diana engaged in an intense hand-to-hand battle, flinging each other around like rag dolls. They both moved at the same moment, Tomoko slicing at her sister, while Diana ducked, trying to get a bead on her, but missing, the stunner discharging harmlessly.

He hesitated, trying to figure where the worst threat was coming from and Taydin's façade broke, as he shot Guinn a look of desperate appeal.

"Right. Time to get fried like a bug," he grumbled and moved slowly towards him, edging carefully around the perimeter of the area where their Songs were colliding. He had little hope that he could do much to help Taydin, he was no Singer, but he owed it to the other Time Lord to do what little he could.

Guinn had initially hoped that Aislynn would be unequal to Taydin. He was, after all, the greatest Singer of their age. However, either he wasn't yet healed enough to Sing at his full strength, or, he was holding back, or, worse still, Aislynn's strength had grown to equal him. Whichever it was, Guinn had prayed that Taydin's stronger Song could overwhelm hers, ending the matter quickly, and doubtlessly to her great relief. That was obviously a forlorn hope.

It was no longer possible to hear either Singer over the howling of the winds, the sound of metal shrieking as it ripped away out of walls and ceiling, and the scream of Probability as it began to shred itself at the intersection point of the Songs. Guinn was dodging shrapnel as he tried to walk against the pressure that emanated from the two Singers, scared that he could die here, killed by two people he liked and admired and who would actually regret his death.

Strange forms were rising and falling where the two Songs crossed and Guinn tried not to look too carefully at them. He knew what they were and thinking about them could only make them more real, feeding them more energy. Things chittered and crackled in the corner of his eyes, but he steadfastly ignored them.

/Koschei,/ he called, /Where are you?/

/Sneaking past bugs, you?/ The mental contact came from very near and Guinn was torn between fear for Koschei and relief that he would soon have some help.

/I'm trying to get to Taydin and Aislynn./ He exhaled slowly. /We could be looking at a probability wobble at the five minute mark. If they go much beyond that, they run the risk of collapsing this timeline rather spectacularly./ He didn't want to think about the consequences if the two Singers managed to keep going for too long.

/This universe won't survive that,/ Koschei grumbled. /It's already not quite as stable as it could be./

/Do we know when this universe split off?/ he asked. If he could run the figures for how long this universe had been in existence, he could calculate how badly the stresses on it were going to affect its structure.

/Koschei, Guinn,/ the Doctor broke in and they both brought him up to speed.

/World War 2 was the big split,/ the Doctor explained. / History is the same right up to the Treaty of Versailles. The French don't demand reparations in this universe and Adolf Hitler became a little-known Austrian painter./

/That's not very long ago,/ Guinn grumbled.

/No, it's not,/ the Doctor agreed and they all came up with similar calculations.

/We have ten minutes at best to stop her, or this universe will collapse completely and we'll all die,/ Koschei sighed out in their minds. They all turned to look at the Singers, knowing that all of their choices had just become severely limited.

/I've got the final iteration of the anti-Nanites, just let me get close to her,/ he sighed. /Preferably without dying in the process./

Guinn tried not to allow the pulse of agony he felt to transmit to Koschei too strongly.

/I can get you close. Damn it all./ He didn't have to tell Koschei what it meant, to make the change so suddenly. He wondered grimly if he was about to turn a talented Singer into a drooling vegetable. But he didn't have to say anything to Koschei; Koschei, after all, already knew.

/If you can't do it, we might have to have to kill her,/ the Doctor told them and his mind was filled with the horror of that, with the terrible weight of all the deaths that had come before.

/No, we can do this,/ Koschei assured him.

/If we can't, it's our job to end it, though, not yours,/ Guinn told the Doctor. /I promised Aislynn and we're the ones that created this problem in the first place./ Even as he was speaking, he was easing forward, positioning himself for what they would have to do.

/It'll be fine. It has to be,/ Koschei responded, not having to even say why, because they both understood completely.

/No other option,/ Guinn agreed and could feel the Doctor's agreement as well.

The thought of Susan, which usually lighted even his grimmest mood, served now only to darken it. He wished more than anything that she was here, that he could have fallen into her arms and shut all of this out. At the same time, however, he was very, very glad that she was so far from Ground Zero.

/Just don't die, okay. I don't want to deal with the aftermath,/ Guinn added. The thought of Susan's reaction, if he.

/We're nearly there, so get ready. By the way, I'd be pissed if you died too./ Koschei replied and there was a sorrow and tenderness beneath the flippant comment that made Guinn smile a bit.

/Yeah, you just want me around for the sex,/ Guinn snarked, but the admission still warmed him.

/I thought that was obvious,/ Koschei retorted and then he was there, standing next to Guinn, with the Doctor.

Rose and Jake, who were standing behind them, were both looking at the Singer's Battle with mingled horror and disbelief.

"What are they doing?" Jake asked aghast.

"Destroying everything," Rose answered and there was a look in her eyes that told Guinn she'd run the same numbers and come to the same conclusions.

"Move, now," Koschei told Guinn and together they headed towards Aislynn.

* * *

Rose and Jake looked at each other.

"Right, I will work on keeping this lot alive, you go see what you can do to protect Diana," she told him and he chuckled mirthlessly.

"Easier said than done," he grumbled.

"Jeopardy Friendly?" she asked and he eyed her.

"Not exactly, she's just got no 'off' button. She's just the 'run in, guns blazing' sort, lets her healing factor deal with the consequences," he sighed.

"Works for her," Rose shrugged and Jake gave her a sad look.

"She wants Susan to make her human, so she can die with me, Rose," he told her and his face was filled with fear and worry. "She doesn't know how to back down, or take it slow. How long would she survive without her healing factor?" he asked her and looking at the brutal fight that was happening between Tomoko and Diana, Rose could see his point.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Neither do I and it scares me to death," he replied and then headed towards Diana, face set. Rose watched him go with a sudden surge of anxiety. Could he bear to lose anyone else close to him? She didn't know what would be left of him if he did.

* * *

Adyra could feel the chaos and pandemonium outside, she could see the stresses that time and reality were under and knew the Doctor was going to need help. She couldn't risk moving the TARDIS closer to where the Singers were battling. The tide of their power could destroy the ship, but she also couldn't leave the soldiers alone in the TARDIS, they could go wandering and get lost, or find information that could change their planet's history.

"Lady Adie, it seems to me that your friends could use some assistance," Captain Rammall informed her. "May I put my soldiers and myself to better use than hiding in a garden?" He was watching her with an expectant look.

Adrya hesitated, torn inside. She had promised Gaige that she would protect them, after all.

"I wouldn't want you to get hurt," she said, "This isn't your fault, but… we have to help. We have to do something!"

"My Lady, we are soldiers," Rammall replied with a small smile.

"Getting hurt is part of the job," the older woman with the scar told her, grinning as though she was looking forward to it.

"Sgt. Matari has the right of it," Rammall agreed. "We became soldiers to protect those who could not fight. We didn't become soldiers so that we could hide from dangers, no matter how lovely the hiding place might be."

"I... yes, of course," Adie replied, realizing that any other answer would be disrespectful to them. "I… I'm sorry… please forgive me. I meant no insult to you."

"You are too kind for any insult to be imagined," he replied with a pleased look. "All right you lot!" he called, turning to look at his soldiers. "Fall in!"

The soldiers went from a milling mob, into a perfectly lined up formation, before Adie could close her mouth again.

"Come on, maggots!" the round Sgt. with the bristling moustache barked. "Head out!" Adie scrambled to get the doors open, as they just marched towards the wall.

"Sgt. Djelly, take troop one, Sgt. Matari, take troop two," Rammall instructed and the group broke in half, each one scrambling out of the new tunnel that now led from the TARDIS, their weapons at the ready.

Adie followed behind them, feeling a bit like she was moving in the wake of great ship, as they ploughed through the passages. She wasn't sure what they could do once they got there, but they were certainly going there rather quickly.

* * *

The Doctor frowned and looked around at the war zone, wondering what Rassilon had been thinking, to allow things to come to this. He had to know this universe was in jeopardy and his own overwhelming desire to survive was the one constant thing about him. This could get him killed as well and the Doctor couldn't believe that he would ever allow that to happen.

Jake was headed towards Diana, he noticed, and he took Rose's hand in his. Together they stood, watching Guinn and Koschei head into the maelstrom.

"How long can they survive in there?" Rose asked him, her voice shaking and her hand clutching his tightly.

"Not very long," he answered. "It won't matter soon, though."

Rose stepped into his arms, holding him, watching the two Koscheis with her eyes filled with tears.

"Susan is going to go spare," she commented and the Doctor winced.

Maybe it would be better if the universe were destroyed, now that he thought about it.

* * *

Koschei gave Guinn a smile. He could see that his other self was worried. If he was honest with himself, he was pretty worried as well, but he had faith in the others. Diana, Jake, Rose, Taydin, Dar, and the Doctor. He'd stood by them before and they had come through for him. They would this time too.

He believed in them.

Guinn grabbed his hand and together they bent into the wind, edging forward towards Aislynn.

"We have about eight minutes to save the universe," Guinn muttered.

"Plenty of time," Koschei teased, feeling surprisingly light-hearted. After all, if he survived this, he'd still have to face Susan. If they all died, at least he could avoid that fate. Either way, it was a win.

Guinn caught that thought and snorted.

They reached the edge of the hurricane of energy and the pain hit them both, but despite that, they were both smiling.

* * *

Tomoko's blade swung in lethal arcs, slicing away at the walls and floors with a clean precision that was terrifying. Diana wasn't sure which Loop she'd picked it up in, but she doubted that the Doctor would have approved of it at all.

Diana was all but unstoppable; but the Blade would cut her to ribbons, and she knew it. Tomoko was a Time Lord now, without a healing factor, but she was ridiculously good with her Blade and Diana was having trouble getting close enough to try for a knock-out. On the up side, Tomoko was occupied, so the deadly Blade wasn't coming at any of her friends.

Damn Rassilon anyway. Diana didn't like the idea of having to take Tomoko down, though she had no doubt that she could do it… eventually. She hoped that the Time Lords could put him in a physical form somehow, so that she could beat him up properly.

* * *

The Doctor felt something moving in his mind and turned to see Rassilon standing in one of the doorways to the Hangar Bay, studying the scene of battle, and watching everything with cold, pitiless eyes. The Doctor turned to face him, stepping in front of his wife, so that Rose was behind him.

"Rassilon," he growled and the ten-year-old boy turned and gave him a slight smile. To see the slender little child standing with his hands clasped behind his back, watching him with a contemptuous gaze was acutely painful. He'd not been able to get to Justinian in time and now he was being slowly eaten away by the cancerous growth of Rassilon in his mind.

"My Lord Doctor, so good to see you," he replied and the Doctor ground his teeth, trying to push away the crushing sense of failure he felt.

"Stop this now, Rassilon, I'm giving you a chance, just one chance," he told him and the ancient eyes, in the very youthful face, regarded him mockingly.

"No, I think not, let's let this little drama play itself out, shall we?" he drawled in a languorous tone.

"This entire universe could be destroyed. You could die as well," the Doctor retorted and stepped forward.

"Oh no, I know Taydin far too well. He'd sacrifice his own life before allowing that to happen."

"You're counting on him to die to save you?" the Doctor growled, incandescent rage in his hearts.

"Of course, why not?" The Doctor lunged at him and he raised a hand with a neural controller in it. "Now now, let's not be hasty." Rassilon pressed the button and across the room, Guinn fell to the ground, screaming. "I have his life in my hands, don't make me take it."

* * *

Susan jerked upright, her hands pulling back quickly away from the young man's brain.

"Susana? What's wrong?" Professor Boma asked her.

"Guinn's in trouble. Something's happening," she replied and her hands were shaking as his pain washed over into her.

"I'll take over," he replied. "Go!"

She nodded, feeling horrible at abandoning her patient like this, but not knowing what else to do.

* * *

Guinn collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony. It was like every nerve ending was on fire, the pain was excruciating and then... suddenly, it wasn't. The pain faded, almost like it was being pushed away, or, rather, like someone had stepped between him and it.

/Susan?/

/Guinn,/ she replied and he could feel her pain through the link, but he could also feel her love, her strength, and her stubborn will. She might not know what was happening to him, or why, but she was there for him, always.

/What are you doing?/ he asked, his mind filled with wonder at her presence.

/What I have always done,/ she replied, her mental voice gentle, but strained, and he shook his head slowly and rose to his feet.

/And you call me 'stupidly noble'?/ he retorted, worried for her now.

The warm flow of amusement and love washed through him like a tide.

/You two are my hearts. Though, I will be wanting an explanation," she warned and he felt a grim certainty that her amusement would evaporate when she heard what they had been up to.

He was holding onto Koschei, who had an arm around him, the two of them helping each other, even as they were manoeuvring forwards. Aislynn looked at him, her eyes worried, but Taydin just Sang with more force and energy, seeing what they were up to.

/What is going on?/ Susan asked him. /Why are you in so much pain?/

/Well, I sort of got kidnapped by the ghost of Rassilon and now he's trying to kill me to stop the Doctor from stopping him,/ Guinn sent back, trying to blur the words a bit, to make it seem less urgent for her.

/I'm coming, right now!/ she sent back, proving that he'd obviously failed to keep her from worrying. /Where are you? You sound so far away./

/I am. Very far away now. Stay there, there isn't time./ He felt a sudden wash of regret. /Look I'm.../ He sighed. Koschei, the wanker, would finesse this, and he didn't have any idea how to do it. /I'm am going to tell you something and I need you to be brave, okay?/

/ What stupid thing are you planning to do?/ she sent back, sounding frightened.

* * *

Guinn climbed back to his feet, leaning heavily on Koschei, but standing again and Rassilon scowled as the two Koscheis moved forward.

"You were saying?" the Doctor taunted and harsh, calculating blue eyes were trained on him.

"His bond to Lady Susanatrevelar is blocking the pain, but even she can't restart his hearts from here," Rassilon retorted.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," the Doctor mused. "She's channelled that power for twice as long as any previous conduit and she has more control than any of the others. If you threaten him too severely, even I don't know what the Arkytior would do to you."

Rassilon narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge if the Doctor was bluffing, but for once, he really wasn't. After his long talk in the Matrix with Aristalandria, he'd learned things about the nature of the Arkytior, but he'd also come to realize that Susan had altered the relationship between the power of the Arkytior and her conduit. He really didn't know what lengths the Arkytior would go to to preserve Susan, Koschei, and Guinn. After all, Guinn should have been burned up, when things went badly the last time, but he hadn't been. The Arkytior had protected him somehow, preserved him, and that was a frightening thought. What wouldn't she do for him?

"You may have a point," Rassilon admitted slowly. "I am not yet in a position to challenge that level of power."

"Oh for goodness sake!" the Doctor snapped. "Your pursuit of power, of immortality, has cost trillions of lives! You will never be in a position to challenge that level of power! Only an idiot would believe that they could and you have never been an idiot, Rassilon!"

"Oh Doctor, the limitations of your intellect are readily apparent at times like these," he sighed. "You know that I am the greatest mind in history, yet you fail to appreciate what that means. I am still here, after all. I have achieved immortality, in ways you cannot even conceive of. I will attain that level of power as well. Just because you cannot perceive how I might achieve this, doesn't mean that I can't do it; it just means that you aren't as clever as you think you are."

"Or, that you are over-reaching, your ego being rather a bit larger than your brain!" the Doctor retorted. Behind him he knew that Koschei and Guinn were working their way towards Aislynn. He just had to keep Rassilon busy while they did so.

Rassilon smiled at him, looking insufferably arrogant and terribly amused. The Doctor ground his teeth together, as Rose held his hand in her own and sent him waves of support, but wisely stayed out of Rassilon's direct line of sight.

She wasn't foolish enough to make herself a target of Rassilon's wrath, after all, unlike him.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21 - Ghost of a Chance

Gaige was moving invisibly through the ship, sneaking past the various insects, searching for anything he could use to fight Rassilon.

The metallic creatures were clearly agitated, but also seemed confused, hopping and flitting around uncertainly. The danger they posed at the moment was not because they could perceive him, because they could not, but because they would fly around without warning, sometimes zipping down a hallway or across a corridor very suddenly. Once a big beetle the size of a dinner plate barely missed his nose.

It was frustrating creeping around, without having a clue as to what he could do to help.

He turned a corner and he was in what was left of the bridge of the police cruiser. There was no one on the bridge, except for a few sad little beetles trundling about repairing bits and pieces. There was a soft hum that tickled at his memory and he looked around the quiescent bridge, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

As he moved around the bridge, he realized that the humming was coming from a section of the wall and he moved closer to examine it, which is when the door swung open invitingly. He peered in and his jaw dropped open.

A TARDIS. It was an actual, working TARDIS. It had been so long since he'd seen one and he found he couldn't resist.

He stepped inside and the door shut behind him.

* * *

Guinn had been surprised at how Aislynn had been able to hold off Taydin with her abilities, but he was gaining more respect for her skill every moment that he had to struggle to stay upright against the tide of it. Her Song now had considerable momentum, and it was taking Koschei and him both all of their strength to try to manoeuvre. Yet the winds were not as strong in those spots where they stood, forming eddies that allowed them to move. The swirling rocks never seemed to hit them, veering one way or another. She was burning through her life; but she was keeping them, as much as possible, out of harm's way. They were beginning to get close enough to hear her Song again, high and beautiful, cold and deadly.

Koschei had a pocket syringe in his hand and he looked at Guinn, knowing the time had come.

/I should do this,/ Guinn pointed out and Koschei shook his head.

/Together,/ he sent back and Guinn bit back a protest. They were all three of them bonded now, it no longer mattered anymore if Guinn thought he was expendable, because as far as Koschei and Susan were concerned, he wasn't. He regretted the joy of the bond just then, wishing he'd had the willpower to leave them, so that he could have died now without crippling them, but even as he thought that, he found himself spiralling closer to them both, holding Susan and Koschei in his mind, not wanting to let them go.

/Fine,/ Guinn sent back and simply shifted a bit, so that he was taking more of the force against himself, trying to shield Koschei as best he could.

/Wanker,/ Koschei protested.

/You're the one with damn syringe! You have to get through to her!/ he snapped back and Koschei's thoughts became a reluctant agreement.

/Let me help,/ Susan's voice reverberated in them both. A moment later, she reached into him and it was like having her there, physically beside him, her arms around him, her face buried in his shoulder, her hair splayed against his chest. She was slightly transparent, but he could feel her touch, the way she was winding herself around his soul, pulling him deeper into the bond with herself and Koschei. He could wrap his arms around her and he knew that she would feel as real and solid to him as though she really was there. Susan was open to him, holding him to her, mind, body, and soul.

He almost didn't know what to do. No one had ever supported him like this before. No one had ever loved him so much before. She knew that the closer she got to them both, the more danger she was putting herself in, and she did it anyway.

"All right," he breathed to himself, "Here we go."

The Song was gaining momentum at an ever-increasing pace and that was going to be a problem very soon now.

"Four minutes," Koschei murmured and looked at him. The strength of the love and caring that they felt for each other poured through them and gave them a little more energy, as they moved again, getting closer to where Aislynn was breaking the universe apart.

* * *

Gaige stood there, staring at a desktop that had obviously been designed by someone terminally depressed, and turned in a slow circle. It was mostly done in black, with little touches of dark shades of gray interspersed about the place, to relieve the absolute gloom of it. He wondered if it was intentionally cheerless, or if happiness was just a matter of supreme indifference to whoever had designed it.

"Good Afternoon," an unfamiliar voice addressed him and a slight figure, dressed in the white robes of a Seer Acolyte, walked up to him.

"Uh... is this your TARDIS?" he asked and she smiled at him, leaning forward with a conspiratorial air.

"Let's just say that I'm borrowing it for the time being. Actually, it's Adyra's TARDIS," she replied. "My colleague and I stole it." She gave him an impish grin and her feline green eyes crinkled in amusement.

"Colleague?" he asked and a hologram materialized beside the woman. It was the rather simply executed image of a young woman with short brown hair and glowing yellow-green eyes.

"Unknown Time Lord," she said, "Identification required."

"Uh... Gaigerandettian, of the Arcalian chapter, husband of Adyralessialliannevanova of the Prydonians," he replied.

"Oh! You're Adie's bondmate!" the woman replied with a bright smile. "I'm Susan."

"TARDIS previous ownership: Adyralessialliannevanova. TARDIS current ownership: lockout initiated. Proposed ownership takeover: Gaigerandettian."

"My first TARDIS theft, how very interesting," Gaige replied with a lift of his eyebrow.

"Incorrect," stated Tomoko Construct 2. "Co-ownership of pilot bondmates is standard protocol."

"Now, TC-2, don't ruin his fun," Susan teased and moved to the controls. "You'll have to hit the switches for me, Gaige."

"Why?" he asked, startled by that.

"Hmm? Oh! I'm dead you see, no way to do it myself," she told him and waved a hand through a panel. "Look, no hands!" she joked and he stared at her.

"You're dead," he repeated and then looked at the hologram. "A dead woman and a computer program want me to fly a TARDIS."

Tomoko Construct considered.

"Do you require current strategic and environmental information?"

"No, thank you, Freeya got me up to speed," he replied. "Right, what do I have to do here?" he asked.

"Place your hand on the plate," Susan told him and he immediately obeyed, thinking only of his bondmate and his closest friends, who were heading into terrible danger.

Tomoko Construct tilted her head, her face thoughtful. For all of the simplicity of her execution, she really did have a very expressive face.

"Access… granted. Query: location and status Prisoner One, designation: Freeyalandria."

"She was tucked into a nook, hidden, and she was fine when I left her," he replied. "Now what do we do?"

"Now, we go in there and destroy Rassilon, save everyone, and get you home again," Susan replied with a grin.

"Warning: Active Singers are in the area. A precision landing will not be possible."

"Oh pish tosh, that's my husband in there," Susan replied. "I don't care about precision, I care about maximum damage to Rassilon and getting them out of there alive! How's your temporal physics," she asked Gaige, who chuckled, feeling very much in tune with her objectives.

"I think I can safely call it 'rusty'," he replied, thinking of how very long ago the Academy was for him and about the last hundred years where the highest technology he had access to was a steam engine.

"Well have to trust TC-2 to run the figures for us, then," Susan replied. "If you will?" she asked the hologram.

"Calculating." Tomoko Construct 2 spread her hands, showing the image of a screen. Gallifreyan symbols scrolled across it. "Calculations displayed. Warning: Active Singers in the area. Margin of error is outside of normal tolerances."

"Yes, that is a sticky wicket, isn't it?" Susan mused, Gaige wondered what a wicket was and why it was bad for it to be sticky, but he got the idea. "We'll just have to risk it."

"Right, through the wall then?" Gaige asked with a dangerous smile and Susan grinned back at him, obviously enjoying all this.

"Tally-ho!" she cried. Gaige set the coordinates and sent the ship flying along its pre-set pathway. He really hoped that Adie wouldn't mind what he was doing with her ship.

They crashed through the wall into the Hangar Bay and the impact knocked them about, like tenpins being hit by an invisible ball.

* * *

"Omega," Koschei breathed. The winds were so loud that if it hadn't been for the link, Guinn wouldn't have caught the word. As it was, he could hear his other self perfectly.

"What is it?"

"We may not have four minutes," he said, his voice strained and unhappy, and Guinn followed his gaze. They were standing in an eddy for a brief moment, gathering strength for the struggle to the next eddy in line. They had gotten close enough to catch a clear glimpse of Aislynn.

Her skin was cracking. Beneath the lines of stress, they could see her flesh charring, her fingertips were blackening, like she was standing too close to a fire. She was burning up from the inside out.

"She's fighting his control!" Koschei shouted.

"She can't! She won't survive! She'll …" his voice died out as he caught a glimpse of her face. Her expression was still and placid, but tears ran down in streams, cutting into her skin like trails of acid burning their way down.

He closed his eyes against the sight, his whole being contracting in pain.

"This is going to leave her…"

"Don't!" snapped Guinn. "We still have time, you can make it, if we run. Let's move." He pulled at Koschei with desperate strength, fighting the currents with all his might to get his other self close enough to Aislynn, before their time ran out.

* * *

Rassilon looked up, as a TARDIS crashed through the wall, knocking him straight into the path where the two Songs met.

"Well," he muttered, as he tried to stand against the gale force winds. "I really wasn't expecting that."

The Doctor and Rose dove to one side as there was an explosion of rock, metal, and other debris. A TARDIS, presumably Adie's, the Doctor surmised, smashed through the wall, sending them all sprawling.

Rassilon was flung away and into the area controlled by Aislynn's Song, on the opposite side from where Guinn and Koschei were labouring towards her.

The TARDIS spun out towards Tomoko and Diana, careening recklessly, barely under control and he rather hoped that it didn't hit anyone else.

"Bloody hell! What idiot is piloting that thing?" Rose sputtered, from her prone position on the ground. She had cuts on her face and hands from flying shrapnel.

"No idea, but I think that idiot just saved our lives," he pointed out with a wild grin on his face. "See! What did I tell you? Something always turns up!" he shouted gleefully and then turned to where Rassilon was struggling to his feet, being battered by the energies swirling around him.

As he watched, bits of Justinian's body were being ripped away, like ash flying away from him as he smouldered, and the Doctor felt a sudden surge of horror. Looking over at Guinn and Koschei, he could see the same faint effect, as reality was shattering around them, dissolving pieces off of them, but it was far more pronounced with the child, his smaller body not strong enough to handle the energies as well.

"Justinian!" he cried and began running forwards. If there was anything left of the boy to save, he had to try.

"Bloody hell!" Rose exclaimed, still holding onto his hand as he ran. "How are we going to get him away from Rassilon?"

"No idea, but something will turn up!" he replied and she laughed. Together, they did what they did best, they ran into danger to save lives and worlds.

Rose Tyler and the Doctor, the way it was supposed to be.

* * *

Aislynn watched as Rassilon's ten-year-old body was swept all the way around the globe, fighting against the tides of the two Songs. He swept past Guinn and Koschei's startled gazes and then onward again.

While she could not act directly against him, Rassilon had neglected to order her to assist him at all times, so she need not to prevent his sudden flight around the perimeter of the battle field.

Inside, Aislynn was rejoicing that she was able to see him being torn apart by the power that he himself had unleashed. She bled inside for the child, for Justinian, but she couldn't save him. She couldn't act directly against Rassilon, even the slight rebellion of not helping him was costing her. The pain was excruciating, she was burning up, frying herself, neural pathways screaming as she fought her own mind for control.

He was shouting, but there was no way that his voice could be heard above the din, so his orders couldn't even be heard, let alone obeyed. He was pulled along with the path of the current, until it hit the intersection where the two hurricanes met. Then the eddies kept him in place. He was pinned between the two waves, like a bug pinned to velvet.

He was suspended in an area where probability was going mad, reality itself was bending and folding. Things were forming and un-forming around him and he grinned at Aislynn, using his formidable mental skills to flick strings of un-reality out at her and Taydin.

The pain of it was terrible, but Aislynn didn't expect to survive.

It was ironic, she thought. She had survived for so long after the War. Now she would be its final casualty.

Her eyes fell on Taydin and the terrible look on his face. His eyes, like a summer sky shot through with golden lightning. His face, weathered by all that he had suffered, yet still he had made her hearts lighter just being near to him. Now, though, her hearts broke for him, crushed under the weight of all the pain she knew that she was causing him.

Foolish, idiotic woman, she scolded herself. She wondered if it would it have been so terrible to have told him how she felt? What would have happened if she'd told him how lonely she had been before she met him, and how very much she now loved him? She wished more than anything in the world that she could have held him just once, and damn propriety; how she yearned to feel the warmth of his touch, just once, before the final coldness came. He was so honourable, he might not have consented; but damn, she could at least have tried.

Rassilon's efforts to reach her were accelerating the disintegration around them. Reality was now beginning to fold in on itself. The air around her was blackening. The walls were pulling in towards her, as space was warping. Still, she did not help him, even though she knew it was killing her to fight him. He was trying to get into her mind, to compel her, but the Song shielded her from that.

It was a joy and a delight to see the rage that filled his features. For too long, she had been a marionette, forced to dance to anyone's tune. Now, for these brief moments, she could stare into Rassilon's eyes and defy him to his very face.

He might take her with him, but she was going to see to it that Rassilon died here and now.

* * *

/Tomoko!/ Rassilon shouted in her mind and she turned and saw his peril.

Her hearts were torn by the situation, she had to protect Rassilon, but those second thoughts of hers were fighting back, telling her to stay away.

/Tomoko! Come!/ he snapped and she felt her resistance melting under the sheer power of his mind. She gave Diana a kick in the stomach, sending her rolling, and then she charged the twin hurricanes, diving in.

Her momentum was sufficient to knock Justin out of place, but not so great as to knock him out of the spirals. He went swooping around again, and now Tomoko was caught in Aislynn's terrible Song, pinned in the place where Rassilon had been a moment before.

He was close to the edge of the hurricane now and crawling against the might of the wind, determined to survive.

* * *

Taydin knew what he was doing. He probably knew it better than Aislynn did. He'd fought another Singer before, after all. He'd fought his wife, Dian, when she'd been controlled by the Dalek's Nanites. He'd fought her, overwhelmed her, and murdered her. Now, he was doing it again. He knew that he had no choice, but it changed nothing. History was repeating itself.

He Sang, forcing reality to reshape itself according to his will, balancing it against whatever he could find around him, throwing some extra weight into a nearby mountain, adding a vein of gold in it to counter the way he was disassembling the ship itself. He was calculating on the fly, everything he did reckless and horribly dangerous, but he had no choice.

It seemed like that was always the way it was for him. He never had a choice. He looked at Aislynn, at the way her beauty was charring into ash right in front of him and he wished he had made different choices when he'd had them.

Back on Logopolis, he should have told her how he felt about her. He should have taken her in his arms and kissed her, made love to her, demonstrated his admiration and devotion in a way that would have convinced her to wed him, propriety or no.

Now, it was too late.

He was out of choices.

Again.

* * *

Caught in the space between the Songs, Tomoko opened her eyes.

Rassilon, busy with his own attempt to survive, had no energy left to spare and had finally released Tomoko's mind. For a single, terrible moment, she was herself again.

She was facing Aislynn, completely disoriented, unable to distinguish the touch of minds amid the howling of winds and swooping of stones.

There were figures there, nearby, strange and shapeless, ghostly and distorted. Her eyes locked with them. They grew more solid and real just before she passed out.

* * *

In every hallway, room, and even out in the desert, it was felt. Tomoko's pain and her imminent demise was telegraphed to the Manifold. They felt it, as her mind and body began to shred under the onslaught of the two Songs and they turned as one to stare at the Hangar Bay.

Then, in unison, the swarm rose, every last one of them. They flew, crawled, and hopped, heading towards Tomoko with a unified purpose, a deadly speed, and a deep, furious anger rising in their collective hive mind.

* * *

Dar ran around a corner and found himself staring at Captain Rammall.

"You're alive! Thank the stars," he breathed out.

"Whose side are you on?" Rammall asked and Dar grinned.

"My own usually, but today, I'm on yours," he retorted and Rammall chuckled.

"Very well, come along then, we are off to do something glorious and probably suicidal," the Captain told him.

"Sounds like my kind of party," Dar agreed and fell in with the soldiers.

"Dar!" Adie called from the back and he paused and waited for her to catch up.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Feeling pretty useless," she admitted. "I feel like I ought to know what to do, but I don't. How can I help?"

"How can you help? Grab a first aid kit off of the wall there and be a medic, because these geniuses left Susan on Earth!" he told her with an exasperated tone.

Adie nodded, and scrambled for the nearest first-aid kit.

* * *

There was a shouting noise down the hallway and the Doctor looked up, as the soldiers, with Dar amongst them, charged into the room.

"Dar!" the Doctor shouted and waved at where Tomoko was pinned in the wave. His mouth closed abruptly, as he saw something else as well. A faint golden cord led off from Dar to Tomoko and he winced as he realized what that meant.

"Blimey!" Rose exclaimed. "This is just getting silly!"

"Cloned off of Adyra," the Doctor reminded her and Rose grimaced as they continued edging around the radius of the hurricane, trying to reach Rassilon, where he was trying to crawl out of the Song's radius.

* * *

Dar saw what Guinn and Koschei were doing. He also saw the crumpled form of Tomoko, caught in the tornado, being shredded by the winds.

"Stay here Adie, tell the soldiers which are our folks, will you?" he suggested and then threw himself after Tomoko. It hurt, of course, but nowhere near as much as losing Tomoko would.

* * *

The Manifold burst into the room, buzzing angrily, all of them with but one objective, to get to Tomoko. They were being battered and shredded, knocked back against the walls, where they were shattering in trails of sparks and fluids, being dissolved by the reality warping power of the Song, but still they fought, trying to reach her.

They were dying by the scores, but would not stop, they would not turn back.

They were determined to save their mother.

* * *

Jake dropped down beside Diana as she rocked to her knees, eyes blazing.

"I taught her that kick!" she growled.

"You okay?" he asked and she nodded.

"Of course, but we have to move, we have to stop Rassilon, it's the only way to get her back," Diana replied and then something odd happened.

* * *

Taydin could feel the fracturing of reality around them, knew what was happening. The maths were cascading through his mind and he cast about for something, anything, to save them all.

He glanced around and his eyes fell on Diana and Jake. An idea began to form in his head and he looked over at Aislynn. Her body wasn't in her control, the veins at her hairline and temples were blackening ominously, but her mind was still her own and he doubted that doing this would be stopped by her orders. He suspected that protecting Rassilon was part of the commands laid on her, since he'd survived being in the intersection of their power, and doing this would save all of them, including Rassilon.

He looked at her and then glanced sideways at Jake and Diana.

Aislynn's eyes widened as she grasped his meaning and together, they worked to direct the fracturing probability to do their will, striving to keep the universe from dissolving around them all.

Despite everything, Taydin felt a fierce burgeoning of hope. Koschei and Guinn were nearly to Aislynn and he hoped that the others could all come out of this alive and whole, even if he didn't make it.

He twisted reality, sent it skittering over to Jake and Diana, felt, rather than saw, as they were engulfed in the raw tides of energy, and used up more of his life force to control it, trying to balance the Song, entropy against energy gain, cold against heat, forcing them to equalize, and then, with a surge of agony, pushing the energy just that one step higher, forcing entropy back and down. Through it all Aislynn Sang with him, in an insane and tortured duet, the tears in her eyes burning her as she glowed with her inner agony, fire consuming her.

They were dying, but as they did, they created life.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22 - House of Cards

The Doctor pulled out his sonic and tried to scan, but the Songs were warping reality too much for him to get a solid reading. All he could tell was that a young boy was crawling out of the maelstrom.

"I'm going to get him," the Doctor finally decided and ran to where the figure was struggling.

The boy's head came up and he looked at the Doctor with an expression of helpless dismay.

"Help me!" he cried and the Doctor grabbed his hand. The child's face twisted into a smirk.

"Always the fool, Doctor," he spat and yanked hard on him, pulling him into the maelstrom.

He never reckoned on Rose however, who leapt on top of the Doctor, her legs hooked around a pillar, holding him in place, halfway in and halfway out.

"Doctor! I've got you!" she shouted.

"Hold on! Justin is in there somewhere!" he shouted back and Rose held on to him doggedly.

* * *

Dar meanwhile had reached Tomoko and was dragging her sideways, trying to yank her out of the intersection point and, hopefully, out of the range of the Song. He was being shredded by the energy, but he was so terrified for her, that it barely registered with him.

He tucked her against him, shielding her with his body. She was lying on the rippling, shaking ground and he was stretched out over her, glad that she was so tiny, as it made it easier to protect her.

Thankfully they were in Taydin's half of the storm, as things were rapidly disintegrating in Aislynn's half of the circle.

Dar had her pressed against his chest and he began crawling one-armed out of the insane tumbling universe that the Singers were creating between them.

That's when the first beetle hit him. It thunked him hard on the shoulder, its wings flapping madly. It was clearly trying to get to Tomoko. More of the Manifold followed, merging themselves into larger forms, slower and heavier, but better able to withstand the winds.

It was another beetle that first latched onto Tomoko, holding on with clawed feet, its wings buzzing hard. It was trying to pull her out of the wind. Others joined it, wasps, beetles, locusts, fireflies, even some dragonflies, all pulling.

"No!" Dar scolded them. "I'm shielding her! She can't take another blast of that!"

The whirlwind was turning silver as the swarm entered it. More and more forms latched onto them, forming a shield around them both and also starting to drag them free of the hurricane waves of energy.

The primary goal was to get Tomoko out of the storm, he guessed, because bit by bit, the Manifold doggedly kept yanking at them. He watched in dismay as individual insects disintegrated, their tiny bodies being dissolved by the blasts of music. They were moving at a creeping pace, but Dar did what he could to help, pulling Tomoko with him.

One of the fireflies began to fail and Dar grabbed it, tucking it into his shirt to protect it, and then started crawling again. He felt the fury of the Manifold around him, could hear their keening cries of distress, and he reached out to them, trying to soothe and comfort them, as they worked together to save Tomoko.

They finally reached the edge of the storm and the abrupt transition from the hurricane to the real solid universe was jarring, they were tumbled away from the battle.

There was a brief moment when none of them moved, not even the insects, stunned by the shock of the transition from hurricane to calm air.

It was the wasps, always the most aggressive of the swarm, that rose first. The beetles, fireflies, and dragonflies grabbed hold of them both, flying them bodily away from the hurricane; but the wasps flew in the opposite direction with a thunderous and terrifying buzzing of wings.

The Manifold was coming for Rassilon.

* * *

Captain Rammall looked around the room and saw that there was nothing they could do against the two djinni battling in the centre of the Hangar. However, Adyra tugged on his sleeve and shouted to him.

"Don't look at the ghosts, they're dangerous if you look at them! Look over there! That's my sister, Diana! We have to go help her!"

He glanced over at where there was a girl climbing to her feet, face bruised and cut, but already healing at a pace that could only be described as magical. She looked very much like Tomoko, except that her hair was curlier and chopped in an uneven manner. Her eyes glowed a yellow green shade, like a panther's. He blinked at looked at Adie.

"That's your sister?" he asked with a feeling of disbelief.

"Yes, it's… complicated, but yes." She blinked hard. "Tomoko is my other sister and I think…" she glanced at the Singers, but then looked away again quickly. "I think he just murdered her," she said and her voice was unsteady.

"Her husband has gone after her, he seems rather competent. I wouldn't give up hope quite so soon," Rammall told her. "You are too quick to assume the worst, child."

"I…" she looked at him, searching for words, then nodded. "I know. I'm… trying to break the habit. Have faith, everyone says. I know that they are right, I just… it's something I struggle with. But you are right, Dar will get her out."

"Faith is knowing with your heart, Adie, so I have faith that you will be healed of your sorrows," he told her and patted her shoulder gently. "Time is a healer with many balms, they say."

Adie looked at him and almost laughed.

"We say almost the same thing," she said.

"People are people, Adie, no matter what world they are from. Now, let's go help your sisters, eh?" He began edging forwards, his troops right behind him. He was touched by the fact that not one of them had run away from the many strange things that they had seen today.

"Which way, Captain?" Djelly asked him and he waved towards the girl nearby.

"Towards hell, but not actually into it, more Hell Adjacent," he replied and Djelly laughed.

"You know we'd go into Hell with you, Sir, but I am rather glad we're avoiding that today."

"Listen," Adie murmured, looking around towards the storms, holding up her hand to shield herself from the ghosts, then glancing at where two men were edging towards one of the Djinn. "In a minute or two they'll be there, they'll get Aislynn under control… that's the redheaded one… when her Song stops you and your men get to cover, and I mean right then." She looked up at him, searching his face. "It's important."

"Where would this mythical 'cover' be?" Sgt. Djelly asked, pointing around at the wide open space of the Hangar Bay and the fact that everywhere was flying debris and destruction.

"Mmm, point. As close to the ground as possible. In a hole if you can find one. Cover your heads. I'll be around with the first-aid kit as soon as I can, just try to not die."

"That is what we always try to do," Sgt. Matari told her with a grin. "So far, so good."

With that they continued to creep across the floor towards the two fallen figures, Rammall hoping that he could do something at least a bit useful before this was all over.

He hated feeling so far out of his depth.

* * *

The rest of the Manifold dumped Tomoko and Dar near by to Adie's TARDIS.

They swarmed around them both.

Tomoko did not rouse. The insects in the room were going absolutely nuts, flying over her form, but no amount of antenna-tapping or ear-nipping was sufficient to wake her. Terrified, several of the beetles actually dive-bombed him. They were too small to hurt him, at silver-dollar-sized, but they made loud thunk noises as they careened off of his arms and back.

Dar pulled the firefly from his shirt, setting it down gently to repair itself.

"Yes, yes, I know, I am taking care of her," he assured them and he checked her for injuries.

She was in bad shape, unconscious, and he didn't have Susan here to patch her up. So, he did the only thing he could.

Glowing softly golden, he leaned down and kissed her gently, pouring his own life into her.

Around him, the Manifold hummed with approval.

* * *

Guinn was skirting the edge of the song, physically dragging Koschei with him.

"You ready for this?" He growled.

Without waiting for a response, he pivoted, hard, and Koschei was swung around wildly, cross-current to the direction of the whirlpool, exactly as if he had been trying to swim across a riptide. There was a moment of agonizing centrifugal force, and a moment when the fear was that Guinn had not swung him hard enough; but then he was in the eye of the storm. He could move again.

Guinn was now properly caught in the whirlpool, and was swept halfway around the room in the amount of time that it took him to get to his feet.

* * *

Gaige woke up in a tangle of sparking wires to see the hologram stooping over him.

"Time Lord Gaigerandettian: consciousness has re-commenced," she announced and Susan bent down and smiled.

"Oh good, I was starting to get worried. Unfortunately, the whole 'no hands' problem made it a bit hard to administer first aid," she told him. "How do you feel?"

"Like I crashed a TARDIS?" he replied and she grinned at him.

"A sense of humour! That will be useful for you. I mean, marrying into our family? That takes guts," she teased and Gaige chuckled as he got to his feet.

"Dar always said I had more guts than brains," he replied ruefully and Susan clapped her hands together and laughed.

"You'll fit in fine, then!" she assured him. "Now, time to go save the universe." She looked over at the hologram. "TC-2, can you get the doors, please?"

"Commencing emergency exit protocols." One of the doors swung open about halfway, then stopped. "Emergency exit protocols complete. Manual assistance required."

"Sorry, Gaige, you'll have to do that part yourself, I'm afraid," Susan told him with a shrug.

"Not a problem, Lady Susan," he assured her and managed to walk across the room without falling down, which was no mean feat when the floor was tilted and strewn with wreckage.

He leaned against the door and it popped open rather suddenly, dumping him out of the TARDIS. He rolled down a slope and finally came to a stop and looked up at a pair of huge blue eyes that were staring down at him in wonderment.

"Lady Adyra, I presume," he told her from his prone position on the floor. It was not perhaps the romantic vision of his dreams, both of them in the middle of a battle, dirty, bruised, and in danger, but he didn't really care. She was here and his whole being was leaning into her energy, wrapping her up in his hearts and he felt a surge of unbridled joy that might have been inappropriate to the battle, but was perfectly in tune with his desires.

She blinked as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She looked just like she had in his dreams, if a trifle more dusty and beaten up. She had torn her jumper and scraped her cheek at some point, several locks of hair had escaped their tieback, and in her hands she held a first-aid kit. Her eyes were very round at seeing him.

"Is... is it really you?"

"Yes, are you all right?" he asked, climbing to his feet to look at her, suddenly worried.

She pounced upon him, burying her head in chest.

"It's really you. You're really here!"

"Yes, love, I'm here, or rather, you are here, on Azari Bal, with me," he told her and found that he was grinning, so exceedingly happy he could hardly contain himself.

"You're really here! I thought I would never meet you!"

"Now why would you think that? I had every faith in you and Dar to track me down!"

"At last, my genius is recognized," Dar's voice informed him dryly from somewhere near his ankles. He turned to look and found him cradling a young woman in his arms.

"It might have been, if we had tracked him down, which we didn't," Adie pointed out, but went to him, clearly concerned. "How is Tomoko?"

"Never reveal your complete lack of competence to others, Adie," Dar scolded her, and Adie looked abruptly subdued. "She'll be fine, she's just napping."

"Dar, who is the young lady?" Gaige asked.

"Oh, sorry, this is my wife, Tomoko," he introduced.

"Oh, the one that the hologram was talking about?" Gaige asked.

"Wait… Tomoko was to be my replacement so… so she is linked to you now?" Adie looked at Dar, frowning.

"Seems that way," Dar replied. "I don't suppose we can do anything to stop that, can we?" He gestured at the whirling winds that were battering through the far end of the Hangar.

"Do you have any suggestions?"

"Well, Gaige already crashed a TARDIS through the wall, so that one was taken already," Dar snarked.

"I suppose we could ask TC-2 and the dead girl for any advice?" Gaige suggested.

"Dead girl? What dead girl?"

"Susan, she said her name was," Gaige replied.

"Is this the part where we search for cover?" Djelly asked.

"You'll know that part when you see it," quipped Adie and the soldiers all laughed.

"I see you lot are still around," Gaige chuckled.

"Lady Adie rescued us," Captain Rammall told him and they all beamed approvingly at her. The soldiers had obviously fallen for his wife just as he had. He smiled at her and took her hand.

She looked very surprised.

"I was about to tell him how you had rescued me," she said shyly.

"Nonsense, you were the one that cut us free of the cocoons!" Matari protested.

"Oh.. well… I suppose," Adie admitted. "You did as much cutting as I did, though, I just got it started."

"Then we shall agree that we rescued each other," Rammall told her and waved them back. "Now, let's avoid the metal insects, because they look a bit unhappy just now."

Adie looked scared at that and turned to Dar.

"It's Tomoko. If she isn't controlling them… who is?"

"I don't know, perhaps we should ask the dead girl?" Gaige suggested. "She seems to have more of an idea than I do, anyway."

"What dead girl?" She scowled up at the TARDIS, which was above her head. "Boost me up!"

Adie climbed into the TARDIS with his help. A moment later, there was an audible shriek.

* * *

"Hi!" Susan waved at Adie and grinned.

"Susan! Wait… from the Matrix? What happened to my desktop? How did you get here? What did Gaige do to my poor TARDIS?"

"Gaige? That nice young man? Not a thing! Rassilon did that! Tomoko possessed by Rassilon anyway. Then my Koschei uploaded me into the TARDIS so that TC-2 and I could subvert it and help out! That's cause he's brilliant!" she gushed.

"I meant crashing it, actually, but thank you… can you put me back?" Adie held her hand to the plate. "And yes, he is brilliant. He's here! I never thought..." She scrubbed her eyes and got down to business.

"I meant Koschei, silly! He's the brilliant one, though I am sure that yours is brilliant too," Susan conceded dubiously. "As to why you never thought you'd see him, I don't understand that at all, really. Between Grandfather and my Koschei, you were bound to succeed. You really must learn to have a little faith!"

Adie looked at Susan for a long time, her blue eyes mirroring dark and lonely thoughts.

"People keep telling me that," she said at last, after a very long silence. She looked thoughtful and very sad, but her musings were interrupted by Tomoko Construct 2.

"Access granted," she interjected.

"Thank you," said Adie, and moved around the console, which was difficult as the floor was at an angle. "Tomoko Construct, can you please reset the desktop? There's got to be something better than this horrible black thing."

"Agreed, I never liked this one," Susan nodded. "So, Late Gothic."

"Commencing reversion: default desktop."

Their surroundings abruptly changed to a dull gray with roundels.

"Reversion complete."

"Fine, I'll pick something else later, at least it's better than Goth though… let's see if I can do a micro-hop and set us right…" Adie was concentrating so hard that she had the tip of her tongue stuck out as she dematerialized the TARDIS and tried to rematerialize it to be parallel to the plane of the floor.

"Nicely done, cousin!" Susan applauded and Adie smiled.

"We didn't end up in the middle of a sun somewhere, so that's something," she said. "Can you please… hm. We've got to have a medi-bay, can you please make sure it's ready for visitors? Because I think we are about to have a lot of them."

"I'll figure something out, but I can't actually touch anything."

"Don't worry, Dar can help."

It was at that moment that Adie heard a stomach-churningly familiar sound; an angry buzzing noise. It was the Manifold, and they were out for blood. She could tell it by the drone of their coming.

She darted out the open door.

"Get inside, get inside!" She called to the others.

"Retreat!" Rammall shouted and the soldiers picked up Tomoko, Diana, and Jake and hauled them into the TARDIS, moving at that rapid efficient pace that so amazed Adie.

She looked at Dar.

"Those are wasps, they're bad but not as bad as locusts, it'll take them maybe four minutes to chew through the dimensional interface…" Her voice trailed off and she went as white as a sheet. "Omega, the Doctor is still out there, Rose, the Koscheis, everyone… they have to get inside!" A moment later she had darted for the door.

* * *

Gaige followed her outside and looked over to where The Doctor and Rose were struggling.

"Rescue time?" he asked, already moving to help.

"We've got to get to them before the Manifold do!" Adie stopped abruptly then turned to him. "Sorry," she said hastily. "Manifold: leftover weapon from the Time War, developed by the Rani for the Time Lords, proved too dangerous, we tried to get rid of them, now they are back. Ridiculously dangerous. I have no idea what to do with them apart from keep out of their way. But we've got to get them out of here too: they can't stay on Azari Bal!"

"If they are so dangerous, why aren't we all dead?" he asked her. "They seem to be going after Rassilon, not us."

"That's where the Doctor is!" Adie broke into a run and Gaige followed on her heels, asking no more questions.

Rose was holding on to the Doctor's legs with her arms wrapped around them and her legs locked around a pillar.

* * *

The Doctor was holding onto Justinian, pulled him closer to him, until he finally had him wrapped up against him.

Rose was hauling him in as best she could, but it was slow going.

"Rose!" Adie skidded to a halt. "Hold on to me!" she told Gaige, and waded in, leaning towards them. She grabbed the Doctor's other leg and pulled hard, adding her strength to Rose's. "We have to hurry," she told Rose as the ominous buzzing grew louder. Rose, who knew that noise all too well, was rather pale.

However, the Rift was expanding, oozing along the intersection between the Songs, and beginning to creep along the edges of Aislynn's Song. It was getting closer as she watched.

"Doctor!" Rose called to him at the top of her lungs, with no idea of whether or not he could hear her. "The Rift is widening!" She could see vague forms in the swirling energy, but Malla warned her not to look, to keep her eyes on the Doctor, and she did so, despite the agony in her shoulders and back, the pain where her legs were being scraped raw by the Metal pillar, the crushing din of the Songs, and the fear that she might not be able to hold on much longer. Adie was panting with effort beside her, the man holding onto her legs, looking worried as well.

"I know!" the Doctor screamed back, but she barely heard it over the rushing noises around them.

She screamed, as suddenly they were flying. The pillar had given way and was tumbling forwards.

She let go of the Doctor with one arm, her fingers scrabbling for a hold frantically as they were being sucked closer to the Rift. Rose didn't need Malla's frantic warnings to tell her that if they got sucked into that Rift there was no surviving it. She could work the sums for herself there.

An abrupt eddy in the wind flung them backwards and they were thrown suddenly free, crashing into the wall behind them. The impact knocked the breath out of her and she could feel her bypass respiratory system kicking in, forcing air into her lungs.

"Damned good thing you're a Time Lord now," the Doctor gasped, lying on the ground like a landed fish.

Adie pulled herself upright, the other Time Lord checking on Justin, where he lay nearby.

"Doctor! Rose! Are you all right?"

Adie put her arms around the Doctor, trying to drag him further from the rift, then switched and pulled on Rose as well.

"Doctor, Rose, come on, up you get, we need to get away from this rift, the TARDIS is nearby."

"Yes, excellent idea!" the Doctor agreed a bit breathlessly.

The Manifold flew over to them, but paused, seeming suddenly confused. Several of them flitted around Justin, but none of them attacked, instead withdrawing and circling a few times before they buzzed off back to Tomoko.

"What was that about?" Rose asked.

Adie had both hands over her mouth, watching them go with a stunned look on her face.

"Doctor?" the voice coming from the child's body hadn't changed, but the uncertain, frightened tone was certainly very different.

"Justinian?" he asked and the little boy burst into messy tears, clinging to him and sobbing his eyes out.

"It hurt!" he cried out, his voice muffled against the Doctor's coat, his gangly body no longer moving with the smoothly controlled motions of Rassilon.

"I know, Justin, I'm sorry, I got here as quickly as I could," the Doctor told him, rocking the boy against him as he sobbed and shook.

"Is he okay?" Rose asked and the Doctor shook his head at her. He seemed like Justinian again, but they'd thought that before. They couldn't be sure just then.

They climbed to their feet and Gaige lifted the boy up in his arms, together they all staggered towards the TARDIS.

"What about Aislynn and Taydin? Do we leave them? It might be safer in the Vortex," Adie asked the Doctor, fumbling hastily with the key.

"No, we can't do that," Rose protested.

"What do we do then?" Adie got the door open. "Gaige, would you bring Justin to Dar? Get him settled in medi-bay?"

"We can have a little faith in Koschei!" the Doctor replied as they stepped through the door.

* * *

Koschei launched himself at Aislynn.

It was a testament to her skill as a Singer that she was able to turn partially and add a new quartet of notes into her Song. He knew in his hearts that if she hadn't been maintaining the force of the main Song, he never would have been able to get anywhere near her. Even so, the snippet of melody that she directed at him slammed into him hard, blossoming into instant bruises, one eye blackening and swelling closed so quickly that it seemed as if it had been under some sort of cosmic time-lapse photography.

But it was too late. He had already hit the Eye of the Song and was moving unencumbered. He wasn't as tall as Guinn, but he was strong for his size, and though he staggered, it wasn't enough to knock him down. He tackled her, bearing her to the ground, and jabbed the syringe into her arm.

Instantly the Nanites went to work, attacking the ones in her system, spreading and multiplying, eating up her Artron energy as fuel. She would need a large infusion of Artron energy when this was over, but if it didn't work fast enough, that was a moot point anyway.

* * *

With no direction being given to the energy now, it all went out of control, the very fabric of reality spiralling into madness as the underlying maths of existence unravelled.

Boulders flew everywhere as the cohesion of the winds dissolved. For a moment everything was upside-down, inside-out, and all of their perceptions were distorted. Reality, having been stretched to the breaking point in one direction, now whiplashed in the other.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23 - Falling Stars

Taydin felt the terrible moment when Aislynn fell. The sudden absence of her Song was as if a hole had been torn in his voice. He reached out with his own Song and fought to calm the energy, to restructure reality as it had been.

It was only then that he realized what she had done. She had expected the whiplash and she had built her Song in such a way to give some structure to the beginning of the collapse. She had left him the mathematical equivalent of loops and handholds, things to try to use to get reality back under control.

The first few notes eluded him, but then he had it. He caught the melody, turning it aside, forcing it to his will, weaving it into the restructuring of Reality. There would be no probability wobble, no collapse of the timeline, none of it. No matter what, he wouldn't allow it.

The effort was exhausting. He'd drained himself drastically in trying to counter Aislynn's Song. He could feel things inside of himself tearing and snapping, as he struggled to find some last bit of his life to use, but he was near to the end of his strength.

Taydin was dying. He could feel himself unravelling. With a feeling of wry resignation, he took that energy and used it as well. He wrapped himself around reality and tugged, using the pain and anguish of his own onrushing death, to save everyone else.

Then, he fell to his knees, unable to sustain it all for another second.

* * *

When Taydin released his Song, the built up pressure from so much energy had no one directing it anymore. It had been rushing through the Hangar Bay, gathering momentum as it went, and now there was nothing holding it together. When it fell apart, it did so with spectacular strength.

The force of the explosion concussed through the room like a bomb going off. They were all tossed around like rag dolls, the walls were blown out, the ceiling vanished, and the sudden shift in pressure made eardrums scream and quiver.

* * *

Rammall saw the blast on the magic mirror that the strange green eyed woman had shown him how to conjure. He shook his head in dismay.

"We're not spirits, Captain," Djelly informed him.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Rammall asked, looking at him in confusion.

"It means we don't have the right equipment to fight with gods!" he snorted, waving at the image of the devastation.

"I'd like to think that the gods were a bit more tidy than this," Matari grumbled and Rammall shook his head.

"Nonsense, they made Djelly after all," he reminded her.

"Everyone has an off day," she retorted and clapped the plump sergeant on his shoulder with a grin. The green eyed woman giggled at them.

"I think he's charming!" she assured them and Djelly went to take her hand, only to have his fingers pass through her. They all stared at her in shock.

"Sorry! You see, I'm a ghost," she told them with a shrug.

"It needed only that," Matari groaned and the girl laughed again.

"It's all right. I'm a nice ghost. I like you all and just want to help," she assured them.

"Would you tell us if you were trying to kill us?" Djelly asked with a look of suspicion.

"I would never kill anyone!" She assured him, looking dismayed by the thought. "My name is Susan."

"Lady Susan, it is a privilege to meet so lovely and good tempered a spirit as yourself," Rammall assured her and bowed. She smiled at him, her expression delighted.

"Oh, you're good! I bet your wife is a very happy woman!" she teased and now it was Rammall's turn to laugh. He had been amazed too many times that day, he was past astonishment and well on his way to being fairly certain he was having a mental breakdown.

Regardless, he had to go help Gaige.

"We need to help the others," he reminded Susan and she pointed to a lever on the console.

"That one is the door control. Pull it down towards you," she informed him and he nodded, following the directions of a ghost to leave a magical palace that was vastly bigger on the inside.

No one was ever going to believe them about this.

* * *

Koschei raised his head and saw Aislynn lying crumpled on the ground. Nearby where Guinn lay sprawled, he caught sight of Taydin on his hands and knees, panting and wheezing and looking nearly wiped out completely, his hair plastered to his brow and his eyes glazed with fatigue.

He looked around and saw a TARDIS parked, then spotted Diana and Jake lying near to it. He hoped that the rest of them had had the good sense to get in out of the storm.

"Bloody hell! That hurt!" Koschei grumbled and rolled onto his back.

"We're alive," Guinn coughed out and grasped his hand. Koschei held onto it with a fierce happiness, only slightly tempered by the knowledge that they still had to face Susan.

"Yes, that worked out much better than I expected it to," Koschei replied.

* * *

Taydin crawled towards Aislynn's motionless form, shaking in every limb. He could feel his body falling apart around him, but he held back his own regeneration, too worried for Aislynn to deal with it just yet. It was coming, he couldn't hold back the tide forever, but he had to make certain that she was all right first.

"Aislynn," he rasped, pulling her into his arms and holding her gently against him. He had discovered just how precious she was to him, but he wasn't certain if he had discovered it too late.

Her eyes fluttered open and at first there was nothing there, as if she didn't recognize him, didn't know where she was. Her face was a ruin, her skin cracked and blackened, her hands mere charred stumps. She'd fought and she'd suffered for it.

After an agonizing moment, though, her lips twitched into a smile. She relaxed into his arms as if the sun had risen after a dark and stormy night.

The mere fact of her continued existence had the power to move him nearly to tears. He'd been so afraid that he'd have to watch a second brilliant, precious light fade out of his life.

"You'll be all right," Taydin told her. "Once you regenerate…" He waited, watching her, but nothing was happening. No gold dust sparkled in the air to give him hope.

Her head moved slightly, but she was too weak to respond. There was no sound, but he could read her lips.

"No," she mouthed. He stared at her in dawning horror.

"You have enough energy," he protested. "You can regenerate." He looked at her intently, but she did not try to speak again. "Asilynn! Regenerate!" he demanded.

/...never again...can't live like this any more.../ came the faint telepathic pulse. The thoughts she sent to him were scrambled, almost obliterated by static. What was left of fer hand uncertainly rose to stroke his cheek. /...It's all right… Guinn kept his promise ...thank him for me…/ Her eyes closed. /Good night.../

"No, no, no, Aislynn, don't do this, please don't do this," Taydin said frantically.

"Aislynn," Koschei panted, crawling back up to his knees. "Don't be an arse! I cured you." He turned his head to glare weakly at her, utterly exhausted. "If I hadn't have, you wouldn't have been able to disobey Taydin just now! So, bloody well regenerate already!"

Her eyes flickered open faintly, and she stared off into space as she tried out this new concept and turned it over in her exhausted mind. It seemed like a long time when she stared at nothing, her eyes blank and dull.

/Cured?/ Understanding seemed to hit her finally, as Taydin watched her face anxiously. Somewhere, deep in her eyes, there was a spark. Her tears crept down her cheeks and they were shot through with gold.

"Yes, cured," Koschei muttered. "Because I am a stone cold genius." With that, he passed out, collapsing to the metal decking again, with Guinn watching over him, trying to shield him from the fierce glare of light and heat coming in through the missing ceiling.

Taydin lay down beside her then and let go. He'd killed himself Singing and now he was at the end. He closed his eyes and grasped Aislynn's hand in his, letting the brilliant flood of energy take them both.

* * *

Guinn watched over all three of them, though he was so tired and worn that he doubted that he could do much at all if danger threatened them. Still, he dragged himself to a sitting position and kept watch. When Aislynn and Taydin began to regenerate, he simply observed, hoping that it all went well, but not having a clue what he might do to help.

When the gold faded, two entirely different people lay there. Aislynn retained the ginger hair, but now it was a darker shade, richer in tone, her face had thinned, her chin sharpened, giving her the look of a woodland sprite. Taydin's hair had darkened to a chestnut brown, his face was younger now, with high cheekbones, his brows arched above his eyes and a nose far less prominent than before.

Aislynn's eyes opened, the green of them having shaded to the colour of a dark forest, and she looked at Taydin. He came to, his eyes now so dark that they were nearly black, as he turned to look at her. There was a moment when they seemed to smile slightly at each other and then they lapsed into unconsciousness again.

Guinn raised an eyebrow at that, wondering if he'd been particularly dim up till now and deciding that he really had been.

* * *

Diana regained consciousness, but didn't enjoy it much. Firstly everything was much, much too bright. Above her the three suns were burning at an afternoon angle and she found the light was like daggers going in her eyes.

The hangar bay had been blown apart, by the look of things and she felt like she'd been run over by a truck. She wasn't in pain, of course, but she felt drained and exhausted in way that she had rarely felt. Something had happened to them all, but she wasn't sure what.

She turned her head and could see two people wearing Taydin and Aislynn's clothes, lying far from her. Had they regenerated? They must have. Guinn was sitting up, looking like death warmed over, with Koschei lying next to him.

"Everyone okay?" she called out to him weakly and he raised his head and nodded.

"Taydin and Aislynn seem to be regenerating properly, Koschei has passed out. How's Jake?" he asked. She turned her head and saw that Jake was collapsed next to her, his face lax in sleep, but his chest still rose and fell, which was the important part.

"He's alive," she replied and he groaned and began to stir. His eyes fluttered open and he hissed at the bright light.

"Bloody hell," he moaned.

"Good morning," she smiled at him.

"What happened?" he asked, looking around at the devastation with a frown.

"I dunno, there was an explosion and we got conked out. Come on, help me with the others."

Jake winced, but rolled to his feet and extended a hand to her, helping her to rise as well.

She felt strangely rubbery, like someone had sucked out her insides and replaced them incorrectly. She leaned against Jake, feeling like they were two drunks staggering home together.

"Wow, Koschei has quite the shiner," she commented, as they finally reached the other end of the room. It was baking hot in the sunlight and she was already worrying about everyone.

Koschei had a black eye and a big purple-and-black bruise showing under his collar, while Guinn looked unharmed, if utterly drained.

"It looks worse than it is, besides you should see the other fellow," Guinn replied dryly.

"Okay, we can't stay here in this sun for very long," she pointed out and Guinn nodded and lurched to his feet.

"I'll take Koschei, you two get Aislynn and Taydin. There's a TARDIS over there, which is where everyone else is."

"Can we be of service?" a sprightly little soldier asked. He was wearing a tan uniform with a peaked cap that had flaps of fabric hanging from it to protect his neck from the sun.

"If you wouldn't mind?" Jake replied. "I'm glad you're all okay."

"We are feeling rather pleased about that ourselves," he replied with a grin and the soldiers moved to lift the others and carry them to the TARDIS.

"I have to find Freeya," Guinn informed Diana, once the soldiers had Koschei moving towards the ship.

"Can you find her in all of this?" Diana asked and Guinn nodded.

"Yes, her telepathy is weak, but strong enough for this," he assured her and headed off to find the little girl. "Not to worry, Susan will take care of you," he called back to Diana and she blinked, wondering if he'd gotten a touch of heat stroke.

"I thought Susan was back on Earth," Jake muttered and Diana just shrugged.

Together they made their unsteady way towards the TARDIS.

* * *

Freeya sank deeper into her nest of boxes as she heard feet shuffling nearby.

"Freeya? It's Guinn!"

At the sound of the much loved voice, Freeya pushed aside the rubble concealing her and rushed out. Guinn was ragged looking, his clothes torn and dirty, but he looked like heaven to her. She threw herself into his arms and burst into tears.

"It's okay now, little love, it's over," he promised, holding her against him and letting her sob on his shoulder. She'd been through too much and the grief was too sharp and painful to hold in anymore. She clung to him, desperate for reassurance and felt his arms around her, keeping her safe.

"It's over?" she gasped out after a long while of just crying.

"Yes, it's all over," he told her, the warm thrum of his voice rumbling through her and she wished desperately that he was her real father, that she could belong to him and to Koschei and Susan, for real. She held tight to him and pretended for a while.

* * *

Adie saw the soldiers all coming towards the TARDIS, carrying their burdens on the screen and quickly slapped at the door controls.

"Here they come, they all look alive, that's something…" She grabbed her first-aid kit and headed out to them. "Medi-bay is all prepped. Anybody get hurt?"

"No, my Lady, we are all both well and victorious, which is a delightful change for us," he told her with a smile.

"Where is Guinn?" she asked, looking around.

"He went to find Freeya," Diana told her, looking around in interest. The brunette Susan waved at her and Tomoko Construct 2 gave her an interested look, before returning to some arcane task at the Console.

"Oh good, I was terribly worried about her," Adie responded.

"Oh!" Diana said, spotting Susan. "He meant Secret Susan!"

"Secret Susan?" Matari asked and Diana held up her hand.

"Nope, sorry, the first rule of Secret Susan is that we do not talk about Secret Susan." She winked at Susan, who grinned back and then, with a mischievous giggle, walked right through Sergeant Djelly.

"That, Captain, is an actual ghost," Gaige commented, as he walked into the room and the soldiers all nodded.

"We've met," Matari told him with a nonchalant look and Susan grinned at them.

"They're my friends! They know I'm a friendly ghost!" Susan waved at them with a bright grin.

"Hello Susan," Koschei mumbled from where two soldiers were carrying him.

"Oh! Koschei! Come along, let's get you to the Medi-bay!" Susan cooed and ushered the soldiers from the room. "Come on, you'll have to open the door for yourselves, I'm afraid. I can't actually affect anything in the physical world," she told them with a shrug and they both nodded a bit dazedly and followed her.

Diana and Jake followed after the group, looking worn and tired.

"She seems nice, but they're safe, right?" Djelly asked and Gaige grinned.

"From everything except her sense of humour, which is a bit warped," he admitted and then hugged the rotund sergeant and slapped him on the back.

"Well, they normally have to deal with yours, so they'll be used to it," Djelly retorted and Gaige made a face at him.

Adie was standing by the console. Her fingers were on the buttons, but she had forgotten to press them, seeming to be fascinated by the exchange.

"My dreadful manners!" Gaige suddenly exclaimed. "I forgot to introduce you!" He grabbed Rammall and walked him over to Adie.

"We've met, this is Lady Adie," Rammall replied with a smile.

"Adie," Gaige informed him. "Is short for Adyra." At his words, Rammall's eyes lit up with joy and he suddenly hugged Adie and kissed her on the cheek.

"Adyra! This is Adyra!" he exclaimed joyfully.

"I... yes, my name is Adrya," she said, clearly startled.

"You are Gaige's missing lady! The one that he could not reach!" he continued, still grinning. "My wife was right! You merely had to climb higher, my friend!"

"All the way to the stars," Gaige murmured to her softly, his eyes shining. Adie's hand crept into his and they laced their fingers together, her own eyes sparkling as brightly as the returned stars.

"I didn't realize that Gaige had mentioned me."

"Well, only to Saddah Rammall, she is especially good at prying secrets from people. Really, she ought to have gone into interrogations, she's wasted at home," Gaige teased and Rammall laughed.

"I kept trying to convince her! She'd have none of it," the old soldier told them mournfully.

* * *

Adie smiled at that.

"So she found you out, did she?" She was very amused by their byplay.

"Read my face like a book," he admitted with a slightly sheepish air. "A remarkable person, really. If my heart didn't already belong to you, I might have tried to steal her away." He shot Rammall a grin as he said that and the Captain shook his head.

"She'd have used the frying pan on you and you know it well," he retorted, also grinning.

Adie was confused by the reference.

"What is a frying pan?" she asked the two men and Rammall blinked at her.

"Well, you'll probably need to hire a cook," he replied and Gaige just chuckled and looked around at the bedraggled group.

"Right, so, let's see what we have to work with here," Gaige muttered frowning.

There was a tapping at the TARDIS door.

Adie darted to answer it and saw Guinn standing there, carrying Freeya in his arms.

"Could we go home now?" Freeya asked her softly.

"Oh Freeya!" Adie caught her up in her arms and gave her a big hug. "You're all right! Yes, we are going home! Go see Koschei, he's in medi-bay, he's been frantic! Oh, I am so glad you are all right!"

"Koschei is in Medi-bay?" she cried. "Is he all right?" she asked and the two of them headed towards the Medi-bay, with Guinn murmuring reassurances to her.

Adie turned to close the door and had to dart aside as a tide of silver insects poured through it and past her, into the TARDIS, seemingly headed for the Medi-bay.

The Doctor watched them pass by, he and Rose having been uncharacteristically silent up till now, seemingly content to observe without comment, which was rather curious, Adie realized.

"Well, it seems Tomoko has some visitors," he told her, watching them thoughtfully.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24 - Afterwards

Adie turned to look at the Doctor and Rose. They were leaning against the railings around the console, both looking tired, mussed, and bruised, though. as usual, the Doctor's hair was perfect. They were watching the room with a thoughtful air, studying the soldiers, Gaige, and Adie herself, with interest.

"What is going on with the Manifold? Are they imprinted on Tomoko now? Are we taking them with us…?" she asked the room in general, feeling horrified at the thought of all those dangerous insects running loose in her TARDIS.

"So it would seem," the Doctor shrugged. "They aren't attacking anyone."

"No, they think Tomoko is their Mum," Dar told him, as he walked in and stepped up to give Gaige a hug. "Damn glad that you're alive."

"Thanks for the warning about Rassilon," Gaige replied. "Glad that you're alive too."

"So," Dar drawled, looking around at Rammall and his men. "What are we going to do with them?"

"There is a big city, to the north of here, we can drop them by the front gates," Gaige replied with a small smile. "We've already hopelessly compromised their civilization, unless you are planning on taking them all home with us?" he asked.

"That's his call," Dar replied, pointing at the Doctor, who turned his intent gaze on the soldiers. They stared back at him, suddenly nervous. The Doctor seemed to think about it for a while and then slowly shook his head.

"No, we owe you lot a ride home to your families," he replied and the soldiers relaxed. "We will not show be showing up at the front gates, though. Let's just drop them nearby, without letting anyone see us. We can at least pretend to be maintaining cultural integrity." He turned to look at Gaige, who flushed a bit. Gaige then glanced at Rammall, who nodded his agreement.

"Sounds like a plan."

"I'll take good care of him," Adie shyly promised Rammall.

Rammall threw his head back and laughed.

"Adyra, he will run you a merry chase, that one, but he will take excellent care of you!" he contradicted and Adie looked at Gaige rather mischievously.

"Is that true? Are you going to be troublesome?" she teased.

"A base slander, my love," he assured her. "I shall be a model husband."

"He's a liar, but you'll know how to keep him in line," Rammall assured her and Adie laughed at the look of bemusement on Gaige's face.

"Oh, I think I'd rather let him be himself and just enjoy the fun," she replied and Gaige kissed her softly.

"Sounds perfect," he told her with a smile.

"All wives say that, in the beginning," Djelly teased and Matari cuffed him lightly.

"Behave, you!" she scolded. "Don't scare the newly-weds!"

* * *

Gaige had spent the last hundred years trapped on Azari Bal. When he'd last been aware of things, Dar had been assigned to keeping the Master in line and not being too pleased by the assignment. So, seeing not one, but two versions of the Master walking into the console room with the child, Freeya, walking between them, her hands holding on to both of theirs, and seeing Dar grin at them both, made him have to re-evaluate a great deal of his previous assumptions.

"Took your own sweet time, you wanker!" Dar grumbled and pulled the blond version into a quick hug. "Made me think you didn't love me anymore." That the Master returned the hug rather fiercely said a great deal that baffled Gaige.

"I don't," the blond retorted with a smile. "I have this sexy ginger, she's much better in bed than you ever were," he teased and Dar clutched his hearts and staggered back. The playful banter was surprising and it occurred to him that, in his absence, Dar had gotten a new best mate.

"Unloved and abandoned!" he cried and Gaige rolled his eyes. He was finding that their easy friendship hurt a bit. He'd been dead to all of his friends for a hundred years.

They had moved on. Well, the ones that had lived anyway. He shuddered, listening to how faint the Song of his race had grown and thinking about what that really meant. So many people that he'd loved and cared for were now silent and very few threads of light still connected him to his own people.

"I see that the spy and his charge thing went out the window at some point," he commented, hoping that his sudden realization wasn't apparent. Adyra seemed to sense his disquiet and squeezed his hand, looking up at him with a brilliant smile and he felt something easing in his chest.

He was just so damn glad to have reached her, to be inside a TARDIS again, feeling the minds of his own race around him again, what was left of the Song swirling through him like water in a desert. He needed to concentrate on that, on all that had been saved, rather than all that had been lost.

"Yeah, that lasted right until I caught him making eyes at the aforementioned sexy ginger," Dar teased. "He was such a pathetic wretch, I just felt sorry for him."

* * *

Koschei had to laugh at that, though he hadn't been very happy at the time it had happened. Being separated from Susan had been agonizing.

"What? A sexy ginger?" the ghostly Susan snapped with a frown, as she suddenly appeared in their midst, arms crossed and foot tapping silently on the floor. "You cheating on me?" she demanded of Koschei, who forced a smile to his face as she glared at him.

"Yes, with you!" he laughed, trying to hide how hard it was to interact with this version of her, and the ghost of Susan grinned at him, eyes alight with amusement. Guinn was watching her with a soft smile, though Rose and the Doctor seemed less than pleased. He understood their reticence, especially the Doctor's. This was the Susan that they had all failed so signally to save. This was the girl who'd died in the Tower, slicing her own throat to save her mind.

"Just kidding!" She drifted through the console and waved at the Doctor, who waved somewhat feebly back, while Rose just stared at her with a pained expression.

"So," Dar asked him. "What are you going to do about that?" He waved at the ghostly Susan and Koschei suspected that he had seen his carefully hidden distress.

"Guinn will take her home with him and put her somewhere I suppose," he sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"She's so happy and joyful," he replied and Dar turned to look at the grinning imp of a girl with a look of intent concentration, as though he were studying her. Koschei regarded her as well, trying not to think about how different his own Susan was. This one sparkled like diamonds, filled with a bright cheeriness that was very much dimmed in their version. Adie, who was standing near enough to overhear them, looked at Susan and then looked away.

"Yes," she said simply and turned back to the console, holding Gaige's hand in hers with whitened knuckles. "I know."

"Yeah, I am really hating Rassilon right now," Dar agreed, patting Adie on the shoulder and then stepping back.

"Me too," Koschei agreed and then they headed back to the Medi-bay to check on the others

* * *

"Don't forget the Elysium," the Doctor reminded Adie and she jumped a bit at the reminder, then shook her head.

"I'll have to tow it. Only Aislynn and Taydin are on the pilot's lists." Her hands moved around the console and she looked up at him almost fearfully. "Doctor… are you all right?"

"Me? Never better! We survived and no one else died," he told her with a smile. "You've found your young man, and everything is good." She nodded and turned to look at her bond mate with a sudden rush of joy.

"I can't believe you're really here," she said softly. "I keep pinching myself to see if I am awake. I feel like bursting into tears because I am happy. It's… weird."

"Not weird at all, happy crying is quite the thing, you know," the Doctor told her, while Gaige just nodded, holding her hand firmly in his own, and she was silent for a while, watching the console as it lifted up and down.

"I think it is time for a vacation though. I'm… I don't know, I feel like collapsing, I can't image the sort of shape the others must be in. You included."

"Oh yes, a vacation is exactly what the doctor ordered!" he agreed with a smile and Rose chuckled.

"Well, then, home first, and then to Apalapucia?"

"Sounds brilliant,"the Doctor told her. "Now, you will let me perform the binding, yes?" Adie blinked in surprise, while Gaige jerked a bit and then they both looked at the Doctor with wide eyes.

"Oh!" Adie looked at Gaige. " I… I've been so focused on finding you, just… just getting to see you, that… I never thought about what would happen afterwards. Of course there will be a binding ceremony, how silly of me!"

"But afterwards is the best part!" Rose told her with a grin.

Adie rather suddenly burst into somewhat incoherent tears that surprised her as much as anyone else. Gaige gathered her into his arms, patting her soothingly.

"We have an afterwards!" she announced into his shoulder and he chuckled as he held her.

"Yes, my dear, we all most certainly do," the Doctor replied and grinned at her, she smiled back from inside the circle of her bond mate's arms. "Now, let's go home, I want popcorn and a front row seat."

"For what?" Rose asked, looking perplexed.

"For when Koschei and Guinn try to explain why neither of them bothered to inform Susan that Guinn had been kidnapped by Rassilon, of course. The explosion ought to be visible from space," the Doctor informed her with a slightly smug look.

"Are we picking up the children first? Or should we keep them out of the blast radius?" Adie chuckled.

"They have probably all been transported back by now. Susan had her TARDIS, after all."

"Wasn't it broken?" Rose asked and the Doctor shrugged.

"If Koschei could get it to Earth, I'm sure she could get it to Gallifrey. Even if she took the children by Trans Mat, I know that she'd have wanted to get them off Earth as quickly as possible and into her own medical facilities. Pete and Jackie too, no doubt," he replied and Rose nodded, all her previous worries seeming to rush in on her, as she twisted her hands together.

"Home it is. I'll melt the butter," Adie was scrubbing away her tears, but feeling as though she was bursting with happiness, even amidst so much worry and sorrow.

* * *

"After we drop Captain Rammall and the rest of my unit back home," Gaige pointed out and Adie nodded.

"You make it sound like you aren't coming with us," Matari pointed out and Gaige looked at his friends and fellow soldiers with a feeling of wrenching sorrow. Now that the time had come, he was finding leaving to be much harder than he'd imagined.

"I think that these are Gaige's kinfolk," Djelly pointed out rather quietly. "They all look like him. Bleached bone pale and with light coloured eyes."

"These are my kin," he replied softly and watched as Adie moved around the console with the Doctor, sending him waves of support through the bond.

"So, you are going to your home?" Matari asked and he nodded. There was a lump in his throat as he stood there. He knew he was going to miss these people a great deal.

"Is it nice?" Djelly asked.

"Just two suns, but we have three very lovely moons," he admitted. "It's much cooler."

"Really?" Djelly asked with a suddenly hopeful expression. "Can we come too?"

Gaige laughed and shook his head.

"Sorry, I think you really need to go back to your wife, Djelly," he chided the other man, who looked instantly woebegone.

"True, she'd hunt me down, no matter where I went," he admitted and they all laughed.

Gaige turned and smiled at Adie and she beamed at him, full of warmth, love, and joy. He might be having to leave a world he'd come to love deeply, but he was going to a better future than he had ever imagined for himself.

They were going to have an afterwards and it was going to be amazing.


End file.
